While Elizabeth Truong’s newest Los Gatos restaurant was inspired by her first-born child’s favorite foods growing up, she designed the menu for her first eatery around her youngest’s tastes.
Truong runs both Breaking Dawn, which opened for brunch in February, and First Born, which started full dinner service on Aug. 17, out of the old Pizza Chicago location at 160 W. Main St. She says she wanted the restaurants to honor her children Brandon, 28, and Chloe, 17.
“I think when you open a business, you’re always motivated by something–your reason, your why,” Truong adds. “And I think for me, they are my why.”
At First Born, an Asian fusion restaurant, “sticky fingers,” or chicken wings, are a reference to Brandon playing high school football, as well as a recognition of his favorite food. The pig imagery on the logo of Breaking Dawn is an homage to Chloe’s birth year, which was the Chinese zodiac’s year of the golden pig.
Diners at either restaurant might even Chloe and Brandon hosting, running food to tables and doing any other odd jobs that might come up when your mom owns a restaurant. That experience isn’t too far off from Truong’s, who practically grew up in the now-closed Mai’s, her family’s restaurant in downtown San Jose, and whose first job was peeling carrots in a kitchen.
The flavors on Truong’s menus are inspired by her Vietnamese heritage, her kids and her chefs, who come from a variety of backgrounds–all of which lends to the pan-Asian fusion theme.
But the menus at First Born and Breaking Dawn also have a little bit of Truong in them. She says that when she was a young mom figuring out what to cook for her kids, she often would just make the dishes she knew her kids liked.
“I think a lot of the embodiment that you see here is just the joy of a mom that gets to see her kids enjoy the stuff that she makes for them,” she says..
Truong also doesn’t shy away from trying new things at her restaurants. BurgerBots, another one of her numerous projects, will later this year allow customers to order burgers on a kiosk at First Born, and then watch as a machine assembles the dish in front of them.
Truong wants to prioritize giving her customers and chefs the experience of the personal touch that is crucial in the restaurant industry, and she says BurgerBots won’t take away from that.
“I think when you come to a restaurant, you want a chef that’s making your food and you want people to serve your food, and I’m not taking that away,” she said. “The only thing I’m taking away is a process that most chefs do not want to do. … I created an automation that shows that humans and automation can collaborate and not take away jobs, but yet enhance jobs.”
First Born is open at 160 W. Main St., 5-9 p.m., every day except Monday. Visit firstbornlosgatos.com to learn more.
Breaking Dawn serves brunch Tuesday-Sunday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. For more information, visit https://www.breakingdawnbrunch.com.
