The Address Magazine Nov-Dec 2013 #92: The Winter Issue

AN INTERVIEW WITH THANEE LAIVARINTR
18 ’ s
a charm
SEA CUISINE OWNER THANEE LAIVARINTR TELLS US ABOUT LEAVING ARCHITECTURE
FOR THAI RESTAURANTS, HOW KEEPING HIS STAFF HAPPY MEANS GOLF EVERY DAY AND
WHY IT’S A GOOD THING THAT HE CAN’T COOK.
“No, because I’m crazy!” Thanee Laivarintr replies. He could
be explaining any number of things about his life, style and
personality. Like the way he wakes up at 5:30am to play golf
before work; how ‘work’ involves food tasting, travelling
and taking his staff around the world; or how business, in
his eyes, is just like 18 holes. But he’s not. He’s talking about
his irrepressible love for design and the ideas he has to add
to his 18 Thai restaurants in Malaysia and four in Singapore.
“I love to do new things,” says Thanee, who moved to Malaysia
in 1980. “It’s fun.” You quickly get the impression that
Thanee has realised things aren’t worth doing unless they
are enjoyable. In fact, that’s the whole reason he finds himself
here today, the very proud owner of a group of successful
restaurants, each looking and feeling very different but
all with the same thread of Thai passion running through
them. Thanee left a highly-paid job in architecture for this,
and he hasn’t looked back.
After working for 16 years in Singapore and Malaysia, the
laid-back designer wanted more. “I felt that I was answering
to somebody else all the time, so if I had a great idea I still
had to answer to the people above me, or to my principal. It
wasn’t easy.” The arrival of his son 16 years ago only fuelled
the desire for change. “I asked myself: ‘What can I do?’ And
at the time, I was 43 or 44 I think, and I said: ‘Hey, let’s do
something I love the most. I’m from Bangkok, I love food,
I eat every day and I’m an architect – I can design my own
restaurant.” That was the easy part. He then had to face his
boss (“You know what he said? ‘Can I join you?’” Thanee
laughs) – and his wife.
“So I told my wife: I’m going to resign from my job.” He
pauses. “She said to me: ‘Are you stupid?’” It may not be the
conventional career choice, especially with a newborn son
in the picture, but Thanee explains the logic. “You know,
life is not about earning money; it’s about doing something
that you love.” That is a nice ideal, but it takes a lot of determination
to see such a philosophy through.
Having taken up his boss’ offer to join him, Thanee established
SEA Cuisine and set about opening his dream restaurant.
“My partner was also an architect; we knew nothing
about food,” he explains. “We went to KLCC to look for a
location for the first restaurant and they asked for our track
record. I said ‘we don’t have one, but we can go to the other
restaurants and tell you, as customers, how to make each
one better.’ They believed me, and they gave me my first opportunity.”
It cost the partners RM800,000 and they haven’t
spent a sen more since. “We got the profit from Rain Nudle
House and built the second one at Mid Valley.” From there,
expansion was rapid, and Thanee soon had 25 restaurants
before scaling back to a more controlled 18.
From the beginning, however, Thanee had a bigger goal
than simply finding personal success. “I went to so many
Thai restaurants in this country when I started living here
and they disappointed me. They disappointed me every
time. And so I spoke to other Thai people and they agreed.
They said: ‘Why don’t you do a good Thai restaurant; somewhere
you can eat every day?’” That Thai input is something
Thanee carries with him to this day, hiring chefs from back
home in Bangkok, where they have grown up tasting and
cooking the food.
“I tell my chefs: ‘You’ve got to cook the way you cook in
Bangkok. Don’t change the recipe, don’t change it.’” That
way, Thanee says, you can be sure the food is authentic –
and that is what customers are looking for. There is just one
more mantra Thanee wants his chefs to work to. “My philosophy
in food is: you cook simple food but cook it well. I
think that is a successful formula. It’s just like the movie,”
he continues, searching for the name of the flick he encourages
his chefs to watch. “What’s it called?” he asks, before
pulling out the most unlikely name: “Ratatouille! Yeah, Ratatouille
is all simple. I speak to my chefs one by one after
they have watched it and ask: ‘What have you learned?’ And
they say: ‘Try not to keep rats in the kitchen!’” he laughs. “I
say: ‘That’s very wrong! What it’s trying to tell you is to do
simple things and do them well.’”
Thanee is committed to this. “A lot of restaurants are trying
to do the same as us, but a lot of them fail on the food. ➢
AN INTERVIEW BY IAN JOHNSTON PHOTOGRAPHS GERALD GOH / IMAGE ROM STUDIO ART DIRECTION IRENE DANESI
STYLING AND COORDINATION LAI SWEE WEI HAIR AND MAKE UP POEY CHONG / MONICA LEE FACE ART ACADEMY
WARDROBE ALFRED DUNHILL, CANALI, DKNY, LA MARTINA, MASSIMO DUTTI, TED BAKER AND ZARA
NOV/DEC 2013 | TA 61