A New Chinese Fine Dining Spot Opens in Hell's Kitchen

First-time restaurateur Bolun Yao, who lived in San Francisco, New Zealand, and China, pays homage to his late grandmother in its cooking, and looks to Michelin-starred fine dining restaurants for inspiration. Yao comes from a restaurant family with businesses around China; his parents met working in a five-star Chinese hotel, he says. Yao points to New York's Korean fine dining scene as an example of the potential for its Chinese restaurants - the diversity of places like the trendy Ariari, along with Jungsik and Naro, Atomix and Atoboy, and deep dives in a genre, like soup destination Okdongsik or the bakery, Lysée. Looking to those restaurants, he says, "I want to do something innovative with Chinese restaurants in New York.". Yingtao will join the handful of dressed-up Chinese restaurants to open in the city in the past few years, others of which include the $500-per-person, 19-course restaurant Chef Guo in Midtown; as well as places like Shanghai-inspired Hutong, with an affordable $50 set menu as well as dishes that start at $50 a la carte. While Shanghainese Che Li and Sichuan Mountain House aren't necessarily fine dining, they, too, are expanding diners' expectations for New York's Chinese restaurant experiences. At Yingtao, the nearly 40-seat restaurant and garden also features five seats in the kitchen and nine at a bar that will eventually include a la carte dining.