Lindsay Jang and Matt Abergel on their new eatery, Always Joy, and the lasting appeal of Yardbird
Lindsay Jang and Matt Abergel are famous for their renowned hotspot, Yardbird, which they opened in 2011. In 2013, they went on to open Ronin, a hugely popular izakaya-style 14-seater that closed in December. But just three months later, the pair opened their latest restaurant, Always Joy, right next to Yardbird. Always Joy marks the business partners’ first new venture together in 12 years. They speak to Tatler about what makes their partnership work.
Always Joy is an evolution of what you built with Ronin. What does evolution mean to you?Matt Abergel: For me, it means freedom: the ability to do exactly what I want to do whenever I want to do it.Lindsay Jang: Always Joy is a much bigger space, [including a] bigger kitchen, but it still has this really nice intimacy, especially if you’re here at night. There’s been an evolution too with who we are as people and as business partners. [We’ve been in Hong Kong since 2009] and all the things we’ve learnt in the past 16 years, and through all the businesses we’ve opened, have been an evolution of our personalities and experience. It’s been the most relaxed experience building this brand and space. We divide and conquer and we’re a little bit wiser now.Abergel: We’re really good at repeating the things that work for us and we’re not afraid to just start again and do something else. I think that’s why we succeed—it’s because we’re not really scared of much in business. We’ve had enough good and bad experiences to tell us that being scared of the idea is not the right approach.
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Lindsay Jang (Photo: Zed Leets/Tatler Hong Kong)
Ronin was celebrated for its intimacy and understated elegance, while Yardbird has a lively, communal energy. Where does Always Joy fit on this spectrum?Abergel: I think it’s actually right in the middle. When the music is on and the lights are down, it’s incredibly intimate, but at the same time, it feels like it could turn into a party at any moment. You can sit by yourself. You can sit in a pair. You can sit with 20 people—we even have our celebrity booth at the back, where no one would know you’re there. When we started talking about the name Always Joy, it was kind of a joke. But when we started working here and being in the space, it felt accurate and it set a tone. Most restaurant names don’t really set any tone. Continuously saying the word “joy” does bring something to the table.Jang: We’re so grateful to be our own niche. [The original Yardbird] that we established on Bridges Street had a policy: if you could find a place to sit, we would serve you. If you brought a couch from down the street and sat outside the restaurant, we would serve you, and it turned into the house party that it still is to this day. There’s this ruckus and chaotic feeling with it. Here at Always Joy, there is a vibe, but it’s more calm and relaxed.
How do you strike a balance between creative freedom and having a cohesive dining experience?Abergel: We haven’t quite figured it out yet. Permanence is important, but I don’t need it to happen today or tomorrow. It’s really about being OK with the process and taking some time to figure it out. When it comes to the cohesiveness of the actual food or dining, people just want to have tasty things. It doesn’t have to have a cultural story, as long as we do our job and are able to cook a variety of things with honesty and generosity. Before conceptual restaurants, there were just restaurants, and you would eat what the chef was cooking with whatever ingredients were available. Jang: The landscape of F&B has changed dramatically since brand marketing became so common. Our story is authentic and it’s nice not to have to have a reason for why we are cooking this food. We have run Yardbird like a tight ship and there’s a loyalty that naturally develops over time. People trust us, our standards and our team because we have been consistent for so long. We hold very high standards for ourselves.
Matt Abergel (Photo: Zed Leets/Tatler Hong Kong)
How do you stay inspired?Jang: We’ve worked with amazing creatives, and I think one thing that we’ve been good at is identifying people who have never built restaurants before. Most of them come from retail or larger-scale set design.Abergel: I go through real peaks and troughs creatively. Sometimes I don’t want to do or build anything and other times, like when I found the space for Always Joy, I was fully committed to it mentally. We worked with our friend, [French Canadian creative director and designer] Willo Perron, who designed the space. We spent a lot of time with him over the last couple of years. It’s a lot of fun working with someone who knows me, who’s never done a restaurant before, but who’s done incredible things in the world. We have this shared openness and he wasn’t shy to give us feedback.
What makes you good business partners?Abergel: People’s general concept of quality doesn’t align with ours. People’s general expectation of profit doesn’t align with ours. We prioritise people. That’s at the core of what we do, and it’s hard to explain that to others. [Our] making HK$50,000 less a month so that we can pay people more is a very difficult concept to explain to others; every time I work with someone else, I spend so much time explaining to them why something is necessary. We don’t need to explain those things to each other.
Matt, as a chef, what’s your approach to the workspace? Abergel: From a kitchen perspective, there is no such thing as perfect. It doesn’t matter how smoothly something is going—I always find something wrong because it’s my job to isolate small problems. Ninety-five per cent of my time is spent improving something that no one else cares about, like the height of a shelf. I love spatial design the most. I’m always just looking for something to move, relabel or change.
Lindsay, any superstitions about the new space?Jang: Our friend Joyce Tsang [founder of Hong Kong-based Stone & Star, which offers crystals and spiritual readings] came for dinner and she said the feng shui here is really good. Another friend of ours who used to work in the building claims that the feng shui here is amazing because she knew three businesses here that went public. So I’m running with that [laughs].
Finally, how do you feel about Yardbird being everyone’s favourite restaurant on Fork Lore, the Instagram page featuring quick-fire interviews with F&B professionals?Jang: It’s hilarious, right? We always want to be the best. I’m so glad we’re always included. We have really stayed true to what we believe in and what we want people to feel. We’ve never been named as anyone’s “hidden gem”, though. Maybe one day [laughs]!
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