Paul Grunberg, once upon a time the Chambar general manager who moved on to midwife the successful launch of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Market restaurant in the Shangri-La, is heading for a new challenge: consulting front of house for Tannis Ling and the highly anticipated launch of her new Chinatown restaurant, Bao Bei. An official press release should start making the rounds in the next couple of days. We’ve seen a draft copy (subject to change), and have it excerpted below:

Paul Grunberg Leaves Market to Open Bao Bei in Chinatown

Talented manager in Vancouver leaves popular Jean- Georges restaurant to take on independent project in new emerging area of Chinatown.

Paul Grunberg of Market by Jean-Georges in the Shangri-La Hotel Vancouver begins working at Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie as a consulting manager this December. His role will be to run the front of house and ensure a smooth opening phase, in what is usually the most challenging time for restaurants. Grunberg’s resume boasts some of the top names in Vancouver and he is well respected amongst his peers, as well as his patrons.

“When we worked together at Chambar, we always had a mutual respect for each other’s work ethic and approach towards service. I feel extremely lucky that he has agreed to work with me and I’m confident that his talent and energy will put us in a very advantageous position,“ says owner, Tannis Ling.

Ling describes the concept of Bao Bei (‘precious’ in Chinese) as an intimate, unpretentious room serving simple, traditional and quality dishes. Ling herself, comes from a decade long bartending career and will be supervising the bar program. Talented chef Joel Watanabe, formally of La Brasserie, Bin 942, and Araxi, heads up the team in the kitchen.

“Tannis has assembled an amazing team of people and I look forward to being a part of it and helping it reach its full potential,” says Grunberg.

Incidentally: The Dragon (Ling) and Monkey (Grunberg) pairing in Chinese astrology is very lucky and denotes success.

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