[Chef's Table] is a semi-regular "treat" for our editors, because it goes beyond the traditional sit-down, question-and-answer format of typical interviews. We kind of said "Bleh, let's do something different", so... we decided to opt for having DINNER with these culinary maestros instead, to see if they hold chopsticks correctly, or if they are more fork/spoon spirits. These are completely organic conversations in nature, edited for clarity and flow, for not only your delight but ours as well. Got a chef we should sit down with? Drop their name/resto in the comments below!

What Yaya's does might raise some eyebrows in Rome, but that's their loss. Italian cuisine with a Chinese accent is right at home here in Shanghai. Once a humble pop-up feeding pre-gaming punters at a nightclub, it's now one of the hottest tables in the city, and it has been running for two years. Seriously, good luck getting a seat even at 6pm on a rainy Thursday. That's when we went, and it was slammed. Nevertheless, we had a chance to sit down with partners Andrew Moo and Dan Li. They promptly filled us with pasta, plied us with wine (their private bottling from Ningxia), and gave us some choice dining recommendations.

City News Service: Take us back to the beginning.

Andrew: So, I'm from Perth, Australia originally. I'd finished university and didn't know what I wanted to do. I'm half Chinese, but I didn't have any kind of connection to China growing up. So I wanted to explore that. So I was like, "Oh, cool, let's do a gap year." So, I packed my bags, and I got an internship in a hotel group in Guangzhou. I was in the serviced apartment business unit. So it was a cool introduction to Guangzhou because I was working, it was almost like a management trainee internship thing. Eventually, I wanted to explore more, so I did another internship in Beijing and started working more in tech.

So, my college degree is in marketing, management, that type of thing. But all during university, I was working part-time jobs in kitchens, bars, etc. It was kind of always my path. Then I got an opportunity to help start a restaurant incubator, and that's kind of how I got back into the food environment. Then I moved to Shanghai in 2018, and I started working at Bird & Bitter, which was kind of like a neighborhood wine spot. This is actually where I met Dan.

But then I left to go open another business called Taste Collective. It was kind of an experiential marketing agency but in the food and beverage realm. I did that for a couple of years. And I would run into Dan now and then at food festivals.

And then so our third co-founder, Mike, is more on the design and architecture side of things. And so he was the project manager for the build of Bird & Bitter. So this is how we all kind of started to get to know each other. And then one day we went on a 100-kilometer bike ride together. And during that bike ride, we were like, let's open a place together.

Dan, how did you get started in cooking?

Dan: I've always been a fan of cooking. I've always been making dishes and hosting dinner parties as far back as college. But my original job was architecture, which is not that different from cooking. It's all about putting elements together into something cohesive, right? Of course, in practice, very different. One requires a license, one does not. Architecture takes years to get to the level where you can be calling the shots. Not so much in cooking.

What made you decide to design dishes rather than buildings?

Dan: At some point, I realized I enjoy cooking more than I enjoy architecture. Actually, I'd realized for a long time I enjoyed cooking more. But I also understood that cooking in a restaurant is completely different from cooking at home for friends. It's more about management, paperwork, purchasing, costing and understanding the market. So I restrained myself from doing that. I wasn't going to quit my well-paid architecture job and be a line cook. Then one day we did a company cooking competition, and I was nominated captain of my team. I didn't cook at all that day. I looked up recipes. I delegated work to all the team members. I went around to all the stations, tasted their food, adjusted the seasoning, and watched them put everything together. And I was like, "Maybe I should really give this a shot." So I gave it a shot. And it worked out. Then I met all these beautiful people. It showed me a part of cooking that I didn't understand before.

No formal training?

Dan: No. But, architects are good at research. So when we decided to do Italian food, I just dove into the deep end. I watched a bunch of videos. I read a bunch of books. I talked to Italian chefs. Then I started putting it all together. We had a pop-up kitchen in a nightclub. That's how Yaya's started.

Andrew: Yea , so we were pretty good friends with Yu Yang and Enzo Grasso from ALTER. which was one of the leading electronic underground electronic music promoters in Shanghai. They were known for bringing in tons of international acts and a little project of theirs got started, a sort of permanent place, they opened up this nightclub on Donghu Lu called X Bar which was a really amazing place, with a great community. It was a hub for for the people we wanted to connect with anyway, a diverse creative and open-minded crowd in a great location with A LOT of Italians for us to try our pasta on, haha. And. so they had a very small cloakroom which for some reason used to be a kitchen before it was X Bar.

We had to pretty much renovate it and change it from a cloakroom back into a kitchen. It was almost like this was very small hole in the wall, and it was pretty much the passageway to the toilets. This is where we were able to kind of test out all of our pasta. We were there five days a week from 9pm to 3am selling pasta while people were clubbing and dancing. It was grueling, but it was an awesome time for us to test out everything that we had learned. Our chef friends were coming. A lot of Italian chefs. We got a lot of feedback and advice. We were able to grow and learn a lot during that time.

So, Dan, how many years have you been doing this?

Dan: I think I started in 2019. Two years of Yaya's. One year of researching Italian. Before that at Bird and staging at different places like Commune Social.

What did you learn there?

Dan: Everything. Proper posture. The importance of looking after every station. I remember one night where one of the dishwashers didn't come. And it was completely packed. And Sergio (Moreno, formerly of Commune Social, now of La Siesta) just put the sous chef on the line and went in there to do dishes all night. That said a lot to me. Now, for the Chinese New Year, when we don't have all the aunties here because they usually leave for the holiday, we take turns doing the dishes. It keeps you humble.

Where did you get the idea to incorporate Chinese flavors into Italian food?

Dan: The common ground is obvious to me. I grew up in Xinjiang. We eat noodles every day. We use a lot of the same ingredients. Almost every dish has garlic, pepper, celery, carrots and onions. Sofrito is basically in every Xinjiang dish too. We cut them and cook them differently. But there is a lot of overlap.

Andrew, when you came to China, did you feel like you got in touch with your heritage?

Andrew: I've been here for over a decade. I feel like I've become more Chinese. At least being more connected with my Chinese heritage. It's an age-old story. Right? I never thought I'd be here this long.

Why Yaya's? Where's the name from? I know "ya" is the Chinese word for tooth…

Andrew: You got half already.

Are you also making referencing 'al dente'?

Andrew: Oh! You got 100 percent of it now.

Dan: You're the first one to figure it out! Yeah just wanted to create a place that served proper al dente pasta at a reasonable price. "Yaya" can also mean grandpa, so we wanted to evoke the feeling of family.

Any bad customers?

Andrew: You get customers that believe that they're entitled to certain things due to their status on different platforms, you know? They're like, "I'm a 'level whatever.' You can give me a seat now. Otherwise, I'm going to give you a bad review." You know? Sorry, it's Friday night. We're two rounds full.

Do you take that on the chin, or do you accommodate them?

Andrew: We take it on the chin. We're as hospitable as we can be. We want everybody to have an amazing time, but if there are no seats, there is nowhere for you to sit. But despite all that, Shanghai has been great for us. We have people from all over the world as well as domestically coming here. So it's kind of cool. It's a very diverse spot.

You've got some other irons in the fire, right?

Andrew: Dan and I and a few other partners just opened a new burger joint called Goodman. It's an American-style smash burger joint that's on Xiangyang Rd N. It's been open for over a month now. It's a 10-seater, focused on deliveries.

Where do you guys eat when you're not here?

Dan: Bastard.

Andrew: Yuan You Tao, which is like a modern Hunanese dim sum place…

Dan: And Crave, which is the same group. It's a coffee shop.

Andrew: I like Sage. Sage is my favorite high-end Western restaurant at the moment. The design is amazing. It's just really on point.

Dan: Allors is good for wine. Sober Company.

Andrew: Bar Blanc. I feel like we go to bars more than we go to restaurants because half the time it's late at night.

Dan: But we also like a lot of local spots.

Andrew: We have very different tastes in dumplings. I go to the Shandong dumpling place on Yanqing Road.

Dan: I go to a dongbei (northeastern) one, Wenxiangzhen on Wuyuan Road across the street from where Bird & Bitter used to be. I think their dumplings have better skin.

Andrew: I completely disagree.

Dan: Yeah. We eat dumplings separately.

What about noodles?

Dan: I don't get Shanghai noodles, but there is one place I like to go for dachang main (noodles with braised intestine toppings). It's under the nanbei gaojia (South-North Elevated Road). It's called Dayan Mianguan 大眼面馆 (93 Luban Road). It's open 24 hours.

Andrew: I like the scallion noodles 葱油拌面 at Dong Tai Xiang Shanghai Dim Sum 东泰祥生煎馆 (309 Shaanxi Road S.). It's very basic but so good! I like the majiang main 麻酱面 (noodles in sesame paste) at Wei Xiang Zhai 味香斋 (14 Yandang Road). I only eat it maybe twice a year, because it's so heavy, but I love it.

Dan: I go to Manji 满吉·豚骨拉面 (501-2 Liyuan Road) for Japanese ramen. They have a few branches and each one has a different menu. They make their soups with different kinds of stock – pork and chicken. I go there whenever I have the chance.

Andrew: Oh! What about those Xinjiang noodles?

Dan: Oh yeah! Growing up in Xinjiang, I loved a dish called guoyourou banmian 过油肉拌面 (Dried noodles with stir-fried pork). There is only one place here that makes it properly. It's a place called Jia Ge Mian 加个面·疆派料理. It's store A13 in the basement food court in Longzhimeng (Cloud Nine Mall) 龙之梦B2城市集市A3.

What do you like most about the food scene here?

Dan: Diversity. You can find almost everything here. People are more receptive to unconventional and creative concepts. People are not gonna be like, "Oh, what the hell? You're not gonna serve wine with Yunnan food!"

You're talking about PuRaisin, right?

Dan: Yeah! Haha!

Andrew: We were just there last night! I think the big thing here is that people are willing to give it a try.

Then what's missing here?

Andrew: Good Southeast Asian food.

Dan: We need more non-apologetic bistro food here. High quality of cooking, low quality of service. I want it to be more casual, what a bistro should be. I don't need fine dining-level service for great food.

Editor's Note: The tagliolini with crab, lobster broth and lemon is an outstanding dish. Order it for yourself, and don't share it. Yaya's has been around for awhile, but I had only visited a few weeks ago. Took my better half who is a pasta-skeptic, and we've been back since. But heed Greg's advice, like a popular New York eatery in Hell's Kitchen, Yaya's is always packed. – Jacob Aldaco

You can book tables here.