How did you come to the idea to open a German restaurant in Beijing?

I have been active in China since 1997. First I started as chef in a 4-star hotel in Beijing, afterwards I went to a German restaurant-chain in Shanghai, and after this I went to a good-going Chinese firm in the province Jiangsu, in order to build up a German brewery, so to speak in the middle of the countryside. After it was opened in beginning 2004, I was sent by this firm to Beijing in order to open something similar in the Chinese capital too. However, at the end of 2004, the project had to be cancelled for lack of a location that would have met the demands put forward by the Chinese investors.

But at that time, I had already got a general idea about the market in Beijing and for me the decision not to realise this project, which initially promised to be quite successful, was wrong. Therefore, I came to the decision, to embark on something similar just by myself alone. The market for this kind of business is there, and thus the idea was born.

When did you first visit China, and what was your motivation to come to China?

This is quite a crazy story: In former times, I worked in Buenos Aires, and oddly enough there I had a Chinese business woman as girlfriend. After 1 ½ years, she wanted to build up an own firm in Beijing, and so I came to look for a job in the same town. That happened already 9 years ago.

You never did regret having done so?

No not at all. Moving to China has been the right decision.

What were your first impressions that you got in China?

The hotel, in which I worked first, was like an oasis in Beijing. I arrived in China in June, and as I went out from the airplane, it was so hot, that I barely could stand the heat (laughs). On the way to the hotel, I was not shown the high-modern Beijing, but instead only the original and a little bit poorer Beijing – narrow streets and alleys, no broad roads, no tarred footpaths, all having appeared to me somewhat backward and certainly by no means modern. And then we arrived at the hotel and I thought „Thank God“, that was really an oasis for me. That’s what my first impression of Beijing was.

You supposedly met other foreigners in Beijing very soon.

Yes, the team spirit I experienced in the hotel was great. One did just arrive, and one knew that one would be going to work together with the other foreign colleagues for the next two years. The management of the hotel really did know how to build up a family feeling there, including the guest too. The guest, who lived there, has not only been seen as just a guest of a hotel, but also as a guest of our family.