ST. LOUIS — Following a trend seen in some of St. Louis' best and brightest chefs, Tony Nguyen has moved back to his hometown to open a new restaurant concept.
Nguyen's modern Asian restaurant, called Snō, is slated to open this summer at 3611 Juniata St. in the Tower Grove South neighborhood. He’s renting the space from Victor Pham, owner of sushi bar Café Mochi nearby on South Grand.
The space is 4,000 square feet and holds about 120 guests at capacity. There are two floors, allowing for private dining and special reserved events on the upper floor.
Nguyen told the Business Journal that he and his wife and business partner, Jessica Osborne-Nguyen, have been able to use the “bones” of the restaurant that previously occupied the Juniata space: Pham's pan-Asian restaurant, VP Square, which shuttered late last year. This has lowered the overall costs of the necessary build out, he said.
The couple are relying on their savings to finance the new restaurant. The two do not have investors supporting the venture, which is typically essential for chefs opening a new restaurant.
“We’re kind of financing everything on our own,” Nguyen said. “This was the reason why I wanted to branch off and open this restaurant with my wife. That’s why we stopped working for other people.”
Apart from savings, the couple have been using profit earned from their most recent culinary endeavor: a quickly successful spicy chili sauce business called Drip they opened for business over the course of the pandemic.
Nguyen is one of many chefs who had classic training in St. Louis, but ultimately decided to move to a coast to showcase his talents. After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in New York, his training included an apprenticeship at the Ritz-Carlton St. Louis under a seasoned sushi chef, as well as posts at top restaurants across the U.S., before he moved to California.
He and his wife met in Los Angeles while Osborne-Nguyen was working at the revered French restaurant Jean-Georges Beverly Hills. The couple were married just a few years ago.
St. Louis has been special to the chef since he left many years ago. His parents still live here, where Nguyen grew up, in the Shaw neighborhood. In the past few years, the recognition St. Louis, and the Midwest in general, have received in the culinary sphere drew him back.
“I just thought so many things were happening in the Midwest,” he said. “I just wanted to come and be a part of this whole thing.”
Read the rest of this story on the St. Louis Business Journal's website.
