When you say “Halifax,” you probably don’t think about a cosmopolitan Asian restaurant culture. That perception may be changing with the help of Talay Thai, the city’s runaway culinary success story. With determination and a keen eye for market openings, the young Dao siblings have taken the city’s palate by storm. From its humble beginnings in 2005, line-ups now wrap around the block, eager for a taste of authentic Bangkok Thai food.

Interestingly, however, the Dao family hail from Vietnam, and come from a family of restaurant-owners specializing in Chinese cuisine. Immigrants to Atlantic Canada who grew up in Halifax, the siblings fill different roles in making the business run smoothly. While his brother Niem Gia has been described as the “ideas” man, it is Bang Gia Dao who generates the menus, and ensures that Talay Thai’s food meets the expectations of its ever-growing legions of customers. A modest person, Bang Gia does not waste time wondering why he and the restaurant have garnered so much success. When asked about why he thought Talay Thai won the BDC Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Nova Scotia, he answers, “I go into the restaurant early, every day, and try my best. I am not thinking about awards. I am thinking about my customers. Their opinions matter to me.”

This attitude appears to be working. In addition to the Young Entrepreneur Award, the restaurant has racked up an impressive list of honours, including an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and too many newspaper critic proclamations of “Best Thai Restaurant” to mention. People are starting to look to them as the vanguard of a new breed of Atlantic Canadian business owner. Canadian Youth Business Foundation mentor Lana Pinsky doesn’t mince words about the siblings: “They have a talent and they’re staying here. That’s the kind of message we need to have here to stop the exodus.”

ECC’s Alex Willis spoke with Bang Gia Dao in April.

Alex Willis: What were your career aspirations as a child?

Bang Gia Dao: As a child, I focused on school, and helped out on the weekends at my aunt’s Chinese restaurant. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. I picked up a lot of skills there. I did not think I would become a chef at that time. But I knew that in order to become good, I would have to put a lot of work, a lot of years into it.

AW: Who was your inspiration for getting into the restaurant business?

BGD: When I was about 19, I was trained by a chef from Hong Kong. He liked the way I worked, and he trained me in Chinese cooking. He taught me very much, very much experience I learned from him. Then I switched to Vietnamese food for four years. Then I switched to Thai food for another five years. I learned from him that quality is very important, and you the chef are responsible for the quality of the food. Making healthy, good food, you always have to be aware of using high quality ingredients. We buy local ingredients too.

AW: How did your restaurant business get started?

BGD: It started with my sister Kim and her boyfriend Wen, who is also a Thai chef. When I was in Moncton working at the Thai restaurant there, I saw a market for Thai food, but not many people making Thai food. In Halifax, there was not much of a Thai market that we saw. But we wanted to make a market, so we took a risk, and made the restaurant.

AW: What are the biggest challenges to running a Thai restaurant in Nova Scotia?

BGD: Early on, we had not very much support. We did have to get bank loans, and later they saw we were doing good business. To start, we got a $30,000 loan from the Canadian Youth Business Foundation and Centre for Entrepreneurship Education and Development, and though we were not sure how good the market would be, we needed to try. Most of our support came after our first year.

AW: Had you done much market research to find out if Thai food would be successful in Halifax?

BGD: We did a lot of research into the Asian restaurant and food market. My sister Kim did this research. Halifax has a lot of Chinese restaurants, and lots of Italian restaurants. There were not many people making Thai food, and not all of them did very well. We wanted to make authentic Thai, and maybe that would do better than they did.

AW: You say quality is important in your foods, and that local ingredients are a strong part of your menu. Do you have any partnerships with local businesses in Halifax?

BGD: No partnerships, but we use the markets in the city. Saturday markets are very important to our business. We try to buy organic foods from markets. We also go to Pete’s Frootique for a lot of our ingredients.

AW: There is a lot of cultural diversity in your background. Your aunt opened up a Chinese restaurant, you and your siblings opened up a Thai restaurant, but your family are all Vietnamese Canadian! Do you have any plans to open up a Vietnamese restaurant? Pho is very popular food here in Toronto.

BGD: Yes, my friends own Pho 88 on Spadina Ave. in Toronto! So there are some chefs there we could ask to come. Yes, we have plans for Vietnamese restaurants. It depends on getting the right chefs. I have a friend who is a Vietnamese chef, and he lives in California. I have talked to him about coming here to work. We are still trying to figure out if the market here is good enough for a Vietnamese restaurant also with our other restaurants. If the market is still good, we will try to open that business later this year.

We want to start a franchise with the Thai food business. But the problem with chefs from other countries like Thailand is the government there is unstable and it is making it difficult to get real Thai chefs. Everything is very slow right now, but we hope to have someone for other Thai restaurants by July.

AW: Do you have any advice for other immigrant entrepreneurs who are thinking about settling down in the Atlantic Canadian region?

BGD: As a child, when I came here, I did not think I would become a businessperson or a chef. But I was good at it and people like the food I make. When you choose your path, you cannot give it up. If you are good at it, people will see that. When other people come here, they should know they can do this too.

Click here to view Talay Thai's video for the BDC Young Entrepreneur Awards.