Michael Chow (restaurateur)

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Michael Chow (周英华; pinyin: Zhōu Yīnghuá) (born 1939), an international restaurateur, interior designer, and part time actor.

Chow was born in Shanghai in 1939. His father was Zhou Xinfang who was regarded as one of China's most famous actors of his time and the leading figure at the Peking Opera. His sister is actress and erstwhile Bond girl Tsai Chin. His ¼ Scottish mother^{[citation needed]} was from a wealthy family whose fortune had been made in tea. He was sent away to a British boarding school when he was 12 and grew up in Europe. He studied art in London before setting out on a business career alongside his acting.

Before opening his eponymous restaurant chain he and his business partner Robin Sutherland opened an innovative unisex hair salon "Smith and Hawes", in London's fashionable Sloane Avenue, which they later sold to the famous hairdresser Leonard of Grosvenor Square, when it became Leonard and Twiggy; They then opened Mr. Chow, a Chinese restaurant in 1968. Michael Chow’s concept was for a restaurant to offer Chinese food – but served by Italian waiters, and with a menu the British could understand; "I wanted Chinese culture to have respectability and acceptance,” Chow says in an interview. Sutherland backed the idea, raised the finance and housed the six chefs hired from Hong Kong. Mr Chow, designed in cool green floor tiles and white walls, opened in Knightsbridge in February 1969, serving real Peking food at a time when most Chinese food in Britain was of the cheaper Cantonese variety. Mr Chow was immediately a hit and survives to this day. Sutherland and Chow bought art by Allen Jones, Patrick Caulfield, David Hockney, Peter Blake and Jim Dine for the walls, which became as celebrated as the food. The partners were to open three other Mr Chow restaurants in London before Michael Chow bought Sutherland out and set off to conquer New York.

His restaurant chain 'MR. CHOW' has expanded to places such as London, Las Vegas, Miami, New York and Beverly Hills, California(EUROCHOW).