Patience is a fisherman’s virtue.
In Cong Nguyen’s case, it’s an entrepreneurial asset, as Business Report details in the latest Entrepreneur feature from its current issue.
A commercial tuna fisherman in the Gulf of Mexico for six years and a sushi chef for more than 16 years, Nguyen is now the head chef and owner of Umami Japanese Bistro.
When he left the boat behind him, he took a dishwashing job at a Japanese restaurant in New Orleans.
“I told the owner I wanted to be a sushi chef,” Nguyen says. “He laughed at me and told me to wait.” Within two weeks, he was learning to make sushi. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here.”
He stayed for a few years and then jumped around to different restaurants in Louisiana to learn more. In 2007, he made the move to Baton Rouge with his wife, Thom.
Knowing Hello Sushi was looking for a chef, Nguyen did a demonstration and got hired. “When they first interviewed me, they asked what I wanted,” he recounts. “I said I wanted a piece of the pie. It was pretty ambitious.”
Eight and a half years later, the owner offered him the entire pie of the 3930 Burbank Drive location. “Everything we had, we put it all into our business,” says Thom Nguyen, who juggles duties as a nurse and mother in addition to bookkeeper and dessert creator for Umami. “We don’t have a comma in our bank account anymore,” her husband adds with a laugh.
The Nguyens took over in June 2015 and kept the menu as Hello Sushi until Christmas. Then they shut the restaurant down, did quick renovations, changed the menu and reopened.
They even changed the name to “Umami,” because by definition it’s a pleasant, savory flavor so good it can’t be explained.
The name reflects the chef’s goal to expand Baton Rougeans’ palates. “I like to do something out of the ordinary,” Cong Nguyen says.
Eventually, he wants to do away with the menu entirely. “When I pay all my debts, I want to do a chef-to-table experience with a set fee and 10 to 15 courses that shows what I’m capable of doing.”
But fine dining is not part of the dream. Casual and hospitable is the aim. “It’s fine dining food and service, but we want people to come relax,” he says.
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