The Rise of the Micro-Restaurant

Tiny establishments like Yan Dining Room, my 26-seater in Toronto, are feeding Canadians' appetites for something new

- Eva Chin

WHEN I WAS YOUNG, my family would fly from our farm in Kahuku, Hawaii, to Hong Kong to visit relatives during the holidays.That’s where I learned about si fong choy, which roughly translates to “private kitchens.” When a skilled Cantonese chef retires or shuts down their own restaurant—but still wants to cook—they sometimes take over a room or basement in an existing establishment and cook there. The concept lingered in the back of my head when I returned to Hong Kong for culinary training in 2009, and long after I moved to Canada in 2020. What a wonderful idea: a small room where you can cook exactly what you want, for exactly who you want.

I worked incredibly hard to get to the top of my industry, spending my first two years in Toronto as the executive chef of Momofuku’s Kōjin, followed by a short stint at Avling, a brewery in the city’s east end. But the bigger the restaurant, the greater the distance between me and the food. Everything shifted for me in March of 2022 during a late-night conversation with Colin Li, a restaurateur whose family owns Hong Shing, a Chinatown institution for more than 28 years. “Why don’t we host an experimental dinner every now and then, just for friends, right here at Hong Shing?” I said.

Pretty soon, Colin and I were buying proper cutlery, building a makeshift kitchen—free of open fires—in Hong Shing’s back corner and hanging a sign in place of an old TV. Yan Dining Room, our full-blown micro-restaurant, opened in October of 2024. We serve a rotating monthly tasting menu of farm-to-table neo-Chinese food—eight courses and 15 small bites—to as many as 26 patrons every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening, all in a space the size of an apartment living room. As head chef, I prep, peel, cut, taste, cook and finish every dish. My si fong choy.