Seal Beach Architect Builds His Dream: The Peking Tavern

Seal Beach architect Andrew Chiu believes he's helped build the sublime.

It’s a beef roll.

The architect turned restaurateur will soon open up a Chinese gastropub in Los Angeles with the ambitious goal of making the Beijing favorite a staple of American cuisine.

“It could, in the future, become just like another taco or pizza,” said the 46-year-old Seal Beach resident.

However, Chiu a father of two, wants some friendly donors to help make his dream come true. 

With about three weeks left before they open their doors, Chiu and his business partner Andrew Wong hope to boost their “Peking Tavern” to foodie stardom by seeking supporters from the popular crowd-sourcing site Kickstarter.

The two Andrews plan to hold a soft opening before the end of June and hard opening in the first half of July. It took two years to get their permits and find the location: 806 South Spring St., former headquarters for the Nation City Bank in Los Angeles. 

According to Chiu, the food will appeal to everyone, especially members of generation Y, as well as those who want a meal that remains true to Chinese cuisine.  

“It’s strictly authentic Beijing food from the streets, from the old traditional street vendors and local home recipes,” Chiu said.  

The drinks are top notch too, he adds.

Wong and Chiu worked with LA mixologist, Cari Hah, to create their bar program. In addition to standard cocktails, Peking Tavern will also feature specialty drinks using the popular Beijing liquor Erguotou and bitters created for them by Louis Anderman of Miracle Mile, a boutique bitters company based in LA.

The two Andrews have been friends for years. Both grew up in Southern California, both studied architecture at USC and both have Chinese heritage, Chiu said. And, Chiu adds, people constantly mix them up because of their names. He even sometimes refers to Wong as “the other Andrew.”

Chiu got his MBA at UC Irvine and Wong got a Masters in architecture from Harvard. Even after they went their separate ways and worked on different architectural and design projects, they stayed in touch.

After both spent time on business in Asia, they decided to join forces to form the architecture and design consulting firm El Guapo Group in 2011.

Since then, they’ve taken on a number of projects including Sandwichsmith in Little Tokyo and Farm Cuisine in Monterey Park, and they’re currently designing a hotel in Bali.  

“After doing design for 20 some years, we just learned a lot from these people,” Chiu said “We took mental notes on how some of them succeeded and how some of them failed.”

Chiu said he and Wong asked themselves. “How we could take all of the experience we had and do something for ourselves?”

And about two years ago, Peking Tavern was born.

As for Kickstarter, Chiu said he and Wong thought crowdsourcing would be a good way to get some additional funding and maybe a little advertising.

He’s not sure they’ll meet their Kickstarter goal. As of 6:50 p.m. on Tuesday they had about $4,610 of the $35,000 goal with 61 hours to go.

But, Chiu said, regardless of the results of the Kickstarter campaign, the restaurant will move forward. 

He adds that people should come down if they want to have a good time, good drinks and good food.

As for his favorite on the menu? He says it changes from day to day, but he likes the potstickers.   And, of course, the beef roll, which Chiu dreams of being big.

Taco big.

For more information on the restaurant, visit https://www.facebook.com/pekingtavern.

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