Le Yen Hoang Anh and her dream of 'addicting' the Danish people to vermicelli with fermented shrimp paste

Le Yen Hoang Anh and her dream of 'addicting' the Danish people to vermicelli with shrimp paste

Đầu bếp Anh Lê và ước mơ “gây nghiện” cho người Đan Mạch bằng món bún đậu mắm tôm

Lê Yến Hoàng Anh và ước mơ 'gây nghiện' người Đan Mạch bằng món bún đậu mắm tôm

The success of the LeLe restaurant chain was once famous as a “legend” in the media in Copenhagen. However, the road to success is not always smooth, right?

In 1979, my family of six arrived in Denmark with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Denmark was different then, but the people were the same: poor but always ready to help.

My parents settled in quickly and after six years, my mother completed her training as a chef in Denmark. They opened an Asian fast food restaurant in 1986. Unable to find staff, my four siblings and I helped out in the restaurant after school, and that was the case for the next 17 years.

Between 1992 and 2002, my siblings and I lived and experienced in the US, France and Vietnam. We searched for our roots and finally the four of us decided to open a restaurant in Copenhagen in 2003 to tell our story: to satisfy our passion for Vietnamese cuisine and introduce Scandinavians to the differences of Vietnamese cuisine compared to other cuisines.

From the first day, the restaurant was packed and the Copenhageners loved our food. Until then, they had only known Thai and Japanese food.

We chose the name LeLe for the restaurant because my father's family name is Le. However, the most meaningful thing is that LeLe consists of four letters, which are four siblings. The two hats above the letter 'ê' represent parents. In Chinese characters or ancient Chinese, the hat above the letter ê means roof, which means parents. Therefore, LeLe is a family of four siblings and parents.

From 2003 to 2018, we have developed 11 restaurants with different models such as street food, take-away food, bakery and high-end restaurant with famous wine and cocktail called Hue Kitchen (this restaurant is 600 ^m2 with 250 seats), a kitchen workshop, specializing in providing salads and hot food for supermarkets, 7Eleven store system and franchising for a French company with 200 employees.

We worked very hard and trusted each other. Dung, my eldest brother, was well-educated, good at wine, cocktails and managing the service system. Son, my second brother, was trained at a Danish design school and was in charge of LeLe’s design, including the logo and decorations of all the restaurants. Lam, the youngest, was the administrative manager and I was responsible for the food sourcing and marketing. My mother always said: “You are like a table. A table cannot stand on one, two or three legs, but only on four.”

Since then, we have introduced Scandinavians to modern Vietnamese cuisine. We work as hard as we did when we first arrived in Denmark with nothing and had to rebuild our lives. It was important to build a place where we belonged, to build a network of work and friends, but most importantly, to have something to leave to our children and parents (like what our parents gave us).

Ms. Anh Le's mother and the family store from the early days.

One of the stores of the LeLe brand chain.

In 2018, determined to grow, wanting to sell the company and needing a professional to help with this, we hired a Danish CEO and after a year, he held a certain percentage of shares. Unexpectedly, greed began to creep in, the CEO embezzled cash, spent it on personal projects, traveled , went on vacation and did not pay taxes to the company.

Then the company went bankrupt. An investor saved the company and about 90 employees from losing their jobs. However, in December 2019, we were no longer members of LeLe because our vision was different from the investor's. Once again, my brothers and I were left with nothing but work experience and family.

That period was very difficult. We were defeated and lost all the fruits of our 40 years of hard work in Denmark because of misplaced trust. For a whole year, my siblings and I were angry with each other and constantly blamed ourselves for being so naive.

Until my parents told us: “Always look forward with hope. Material things or money are not as important as we all have good health and are always together; feel happiness from the little good things in life. Other things may come as a bonus.”

My parents were right. For the first time in 20 years, my brother and I sat down together and laughed. We worked so hard that we sometimes had little time for each other. Money can’t buy happiness.

Now we have our own restaurant, less work, support each other and spend time on the little things that make us happy. The hardship has made us stronger.

Anh Le's books are the cooking secrets of many Danish women.

How many Vietnamese cookbooks have you written in Danish? How have readers responded to them?

I have written three cookbooks: LêLês Gadekoekken (Street Food), LêLês Groenne Koekken (Green Kitchen) and LêLês Urtekoekken (Herb Kitchen). I have also co-authored three other books on Climate Cooking with some of the best chefs here. The most recent book in 2018 was with Princess Marie Sophie Frederikke Dagmar and the best chefs in Denmark.

These were bestsellers at Gyldendal Publishing House. My Vietnamese recipes made it possible for any Danish family to make their own, and that's why I was a regular chef on Danish national television for six years.

Vietnamese cuisine is now known to many Scandinavians.

Lê Yến Hoàng Anh và ước mơ 'gây nghiện' cho người Đan Mạch bằng món bún đậu mắm tôm

What do you think about introducing Vietnamese food in Denmark?

My family was the first to introduce Vietnamese food to Scandinavia. Before that, people had to go to Paris or big cities in the US to eat Vietnamese food. Finding Vietnamese food in Scandinavia in 2003 was like looking for a restaurant in the woods.

At first, it was hard to explain to the Danes what pure fish sauce was and why they should eat it with herbs, as herbs were quite expensive back then and most restaurants here only served steak and fries. Nevertheless, we introduced spring rolls, pho, chicken curry and vermicelli with grilled pork with all our passion.

During the economic crisis in 2008, we created a line of Vietnamese takeaway food including spring rolls, spring rolls, wontons... In 2010, we introduced Hue cuisine combined with cocktails and wine. In 2016, we opened Vietnamese sandwiches and dumplings shops in supermarkets and Copenhagen airport.

It took nearly 20 years for the Danes to get used to Vietnamese food in different styles: from street food to royal fine dining in Hue. This was really hard work. We had to appear on TV shows, write books, give instructions on how to eat, and tell stories about Vietnamese dishes in restaurants.

In 2012, when I hosted the TV food show “Eat Vietnam”, I made six episodes about my journey to Saigon, Hanoi and Phu Quoc to introduce the cuisine and people there. The show was later shown in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland.

When introducing our dishes to Scandinavians, we tell our story with pride in our Vietnamese roots and culture.

Ms. Anh Le, Royal Friends and the Book Written with Princess Marie.

What are the ingredients that make your dishes always purely Vietnamese?

Living in a cold country, you don’t always have access to Vietnamese ingredients or products. For me, when I can utilize local products combined with fish sauce and herbs, the dish becomes Vietnamese.

If I import frozen fish from Vietnam to make sour soup when there is plenty of fresh fish from Denmark here, it is not reasonable. However, fish sauce must be imported from Thanh Ha in Phu Quoc.

The recipes were all passed down from my grandmother from Hanoi and my mother from Saigon.

Do you have plans to develop Vietnamese dishes in the future?

I don’t plan to develop Vietnamese dishes further because I have spent 20 years introducing them to the Danes. Now it is time to reap the fruits of my hard work. I have just reopened my Vietnamese sandwich shop and will fulfill my dream of making the Danes “addicted” to the dish I dream of eating every day: bun dau mam tom, the way it tastes in Hanoi.

You must have a lot of feelings about Vietnam!

Mr. Le often recalls the happy memories of the years 1995-1997, when she returned to Ho Chi Minh City to find her roots.

I have traveled and worked in many places around the world: in the US, New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, then France, Switzerland and Denmark. However, I must admit that the two happiest years of my life were in Ho Chi Minh City, from 1995 to 1997. My goal in the next five years, when my son is 18, is to live more in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Da Lat.

For the past 45 years, I have been searching for my roots by living in many different countries. In my life, I have seen tall Vikings, met people with different skin colors: brown, black and red, and tried their food. I have learned many things from different cultures, and had fun experiences in different cities. But in the end, when I look in the mirror, I still see an Asian woman. When I think back, the first memories that come back to me are still the first five years of my life with the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, the green rice fields of Song Be, and the words of my grandparents. The delicious dishes that I crave to eat the most, even in my dreams, are Vietnamese dishes.

Once, I was stranded in Warsaw, Poland during a cold winter. It was 1999, and I was working as a flight attendant for Swiss Air. Wandering around the main street for just 30 minutes, I was delighted to see that many of the stalls there were run by Vietnamese people. No matter where I travel in the world, I always look for Vietnamese restaurants wherever I go. Perhaps it is because, the longing for Vietnam is always present in me.