Sylvia Wu, whose famed Southern California restaurant drew Hollywood’s greatest stars for 4 a long time, has died on the age of 106, studies the LA Instances.
Madame Wu’s Backyard on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica grew to become a eating vacation spot quickly after it opened in 1959, standard for its delicacies and pagoda-style décor with jade statues, a stone waterfall, and a koi-filled fountain.
Wu herself was identified for carrying a floor-length silk costume as she alternately greeted the Hollywood elite and picked up the telephone to take takeout orders. She died on September 19.
He was impressed to open the restaurant after arriving from China to search out solely heavy imitation Cantonese dishes. “Chop suey in all places,” he complained to USA Right this moment. “All you see are chop suey homes.”
At Madame Wu’s Backyard, Mae West most well-liked the chilly melon soup, Gregory Peck and Paul Newman loved the shrimp toasties and crab bites, whereas Princess Grace of Monaco most well-liked the roast Peking duck, in keeping with the LA Instances.
“Everybody on this city is aware of Madame Wu,” the late TV host Merv Griffin as soon as advised the newspaper. “One of the vital beloved, candy and chic ladies I’ve ever met.”
He instantly regretted closing the restaurant in 1998 and opened Madame Wu’s Asian Bistro & Sushi. That restaurant did not final, however the affection for Wu persevered. When she turned 100 in 2014, her former purchasers packed a resort ballroom for her party.
Born Sylvia Cheng on October 24, 1915, Wu grew up in Jiujiang, a metropolis southwest of Shanghai, the place she discovered to cook dinner whereas watching the maid put together meals for her well-to-do household.
The household moved to Shanghai after which to Hong Kong. Throughout World Struggle II she took an ocean liner to New York Metropolis.
“I do not understand how I obtained up the braveness,” he later recalled. “I had no household in the US. The journey lasted 40 days and because of the struggle there was a blackout all the way in which.”
Whereas learning training at Columbia College, she met King Yan Wu, a profitable chemist. They married, had three youngsters, and moved to Los Angeles, the place he took an engineering job at Hughes Plane Co and he or she grew to become a restorer.
Wu additionally wrote cookbooks, appeared often on tv, and was lively in charity work, notably on the Metropolis of Hope most cancers heart after her daughter, Loretta, died of breast most cancers at age 34.
Wu is survived by his sons George and Patrick and quite a few grandchildren, in keeping with the LA Instances. Her husband died in 2011. The 2 had been married for 67 years.
