Is this Hong Kong’s ultimate multi-hyphenate? Tastemaker and wellness guru Lindsay Jang co-founded Ronin and Yardbird restaurants, and launched ‘the female Hypebeast’
- Her parents ran a Cantonese restaurant in her Canadian hometown, inspiring Lindsay Jang to work at Nobu in New York, before inventing modern yakitori Yardbird in Hong Kong
- A lifelong yogi, she recently created Family Form, a mat-based sculpting workout at The Upper House, and hosts various wellness projects and F&B pop-ups
If you had to describe a day in the life of Lindsay Jang, the film title Everything Everywhere All At Once comes to mind.
“My daughter had career day recently and she didn’t invite me to speak to her class. I asked her why and she said she didn’t know how to explain to people what I do,” she says with a laugh.
Jang is best known as the brains behind hip Hong Kong eateries like Ronin and Yardbird, which she co-founded with her partner (formerly in life, now in business), Matt Abergel.
A visit to her Instagram page, however, showcases her many other pursuits, from “influencing” for beauty, fashion and jewellery brands, and hosting restaurant pop-ups around the globe, to various wellness projects including her latest: Family Form, a mat-based sculpting workout that boasts a cult following of health-obsessed women from all walks of life.
“Everything thing I do is connected by this idea of hospitality. I want to add hospitality to all these different experiences, whether it’s in fitness or something else. People think the industry is defined by F&B [food and beverage] and hotels, but really, it’s just about making people happy,” she says.
Jang was destined for a future in hospitality. Her parents ran a Cantonese restaurant in her hometown of Alberta, Canada.
She and Abergel started to carve their own careers at a young age – they moved to New York City in the 2002, where he worked as a chef and she became hostess at celebrity haunt Nobu. They planned to move to Japan after a few years, but that all changed when she got pregnant with their first child.
After travelling for a while, they ended up in London working for contemporary Japanese eatery Zuma before deciding that the city wasn’t for them. The powers-that-be offered them a stint in Hong Kong instead, and they landed in the city in 2009 with the aim of moving back to North America after two years.
“The original business plan was to open Yardbird in Vancouver but we wanted to travel before moving back. Then the financial crisis hit and no one in Vancouver was interested so we decided to stay [in Hong Kong] because Matt was doing well here. We opened Yardbird in 2011,” she says.