To  read Michael Chow’s curriculum
vitae is to discover the meaning of the term Renaissance man. While in the case of many entrepreneurs this cliche might be without merit, not so in the case of Chow. He has made his mark not only as a restaurateur but as an actor, designer and collector, proving that two careers (or three or four) are better than one.

            These days, Chow and his wife, fashion designer Eva Chun, have been watching their latest project take off. Westwood’s Eurochow began as a mere space in a 1929 building on Westwood Boulevard, and the Chows have developed it into a chic spot worthy  of the Tinseltown after-parties that take place there with growing frequency. The dreamy interior, boasting a 55-foot ceiling and design that borrows from Kubrick and Le Corbusier alike, makes quite a statement, from the miniature Washington Monument to the Venetian bridge that seemingly floats in the middle of the dining room. Quite memorable, all in all.

            Chock this up in part to Chow’s design savvy, an obvious talent he has used to great effect in his Beverly Hills restaurant. not to mention Armani’s Rodeo Drive boutique and the Armani boutique at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. the bridge is a case in point. “It was going to be a dark color till I went to San Francisco and the museum of art there ... there’s a wonderful white bridge there and I thought, why not white? So in fact it looks very light because it’s white, when in fact it’s very heavy.” He also enjoys the perspective one gets with a bridge aloft above the main dining area. “You have another level of visual,” he observes, “like standing on top of  a mountain top looking down.”

            An apt metaphor for him to use.  Eurochow is the latest in a line of restaurants for Chow, from his first in London, a hot spot since the swingin’ sixties, to the New York location, frequented by the likes of Warhol and Basquiat, to Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills, now a Tinseltown tradition. For the 30th anniversary of the London restaurant, Chow and his wife threw a party in L.A. for 450. Attendees included Elton John, Joe Pesci, Oliver Stone and David Hockney. Such celebrity makes Chow feel right at home. The son of a star in the Beijing Opera, he grew up in close proximity to glitter, making him the perfect L.A. restaurateur, a sort of Beverly Hills burghermeister, creating a comfortable atmosphere in which to see and be seen.

       Or, in the case of Eurochow, “atmospheres.” “As you move,” Chow explains, “you discover moments of detail, so it’s always changing, visually very feasting. Like in a movie if the camera moves then you have the feast of the visual; if the camera stands still you get the repetitious image for many moments.” The challenge, as he sees it, is to resist this “repetitious image.” “Visually,” he continues, “you can get very bored — I’m not talking about personally, I mean some people get bored looking at their wife, so you try to have a three-dimensional approach to the visuals.”

 

      “We have many different sections of the space,” Eva adds, pointing out the different areas. “A client comes in one day and they sit in the train booth ... We call it the train because it reminds me of a dining car. So you can sit there and it’s very cozy, sort of really closed; and that’s ‘the stage’; and that’s a big white room, so there’s a lot of little areas. It’s not like you go one time and you say ‘Oh I’ve seen it’ — we try to make it exciting and different.”

      But it’s not all play and no work for the Chows: While the visual effect is fun, the menu is serious business. “Finally at the end of the day,” Chow muses, “the food is the most important thing — what’s sort of almost taken for granted, has to be absolutely right.” Combining a sense of whimsy with a sense of purpose, the Chows have equipped the restaurant with two kitchens, one to prepare Italian dishes and one for Chinese. The point of this, Chow explains, is “to have very authentic, true classical recipes and make it as good, as faithful as possible.”

      “Personally,” Eva adds, “we’re both not very big on fusion.”

       A self-described “fanatical collector,” Chow has outfitted the Westwood eatery from his personal stock — everything from vintage ice buckets to lamps by Giacometti. His most intriguing collection, however, is a series of portraits of himself by Hockney, Basquiat, Warhol, Haring — an art world who’s who, documenting the last three decades of contemporary art. You won’t see these on the walls of Eurochow, but the story of how it came about only proves once again Chow’s ability to combine a sense of glitz with a sense of purpose.

       “We started with Peter Blake in London, 34 years ago,” Chow recalls. “I said to Peter, why don’t you paint a picture, the antithesis of quintessential chinoiserie, so he decided to do a portrait of me as a wrestler and he gave me two bodyguards. In those days portraiture was out of fashion, pre-Andy Warhol, so I asked David Hockney to do one, and so then I was beginning to accumulate and collect portraits of myself. If they have a little bit of ego involved — you know, whatever it takes. I thought it was a unique idea, and artists have been very generous in doing me. Keith Haring did a portrait of me as green prawns, which is pretty ugly, but ugliness in art and ugliness in life are two different things. I have this wonderful, lucky collection, and now they are painting Eva, so the collection’s growing; and also, because it spans 35 years, it sort of has an arc of the history of art and artists.”

     This arc runs parallel to Chow’s own, somehow, following his ascendancy in the restaurant world. And as Michael and Eva Chow prove how easy it can be to turn the restaurant business into an art form, those who appreciate fine cuisine, thoughtful design and Hollywood flash are “eating it up.”