Madame Wu, who fed L.A. elite, dies at 106
Hollywood’s brightest raced to eatery to see food icon
LOS ANGELES — Her long black hair piled atop her head and stunning in a floor-length silk gown, Madame Sylvia Wu would step from her Rollsroyce Silver Cloud and — smiling broadly — push open the red double doors of her pagoda-style restaurant, already teeming with customers.
On a given night, Frank Sinatra and his young bride, Mia Farrow, would be enjoying a plate of Wu’s beef, stir-fried shards of flank steak with onions and oyster sauce. Mae West showed up on Sundays and faithfully ordered the cold melon soup, while Gregory Peck and Paul Newman fancied the shrimp toast and crab puffs. Princess Grace of Monaco gushed about the Peking roast duck.
For decades Madame Wu’s Garden in Santa Monica was where smartly dressed Hollywood A-listers huddled in the Imperial Room with its jade and rose quartz statues while birds chirped in antique cages and koi slowly glided in the elegant fountain.
In an era when chop suey and General Tso’s chicken passed for authentic Chinese cuisine, the restaurant’s menu was a step forward, though still light-years from the diversity and authenticity of today’s culinary scene in food-crazy Los Angeles. But it mattered little, for Wu was always the star attraction.
A bundle of energy who slowed down only slightly in retirement, Wu died Sept. 29 at 106.
In its heyday, Madame Wu’s Garden was a welcoming beacon on Wilshire Boulevard, bubbling with activity and packed with the Hollywood elite. It seated 300, had stone waterfalls, bold red murals and Tang Dynasty horses painted on the walls, as if trotting toward the kitchen.
When she closed the restaurant in 1998, as tastes in the city shifted and she spoke longingly of spending more time with her grandchildren, she immediately regretted the decision and opened Madame Wu’s Asian Bistro & Sushi. Although the new restaurant vanished quickly, affection for Madame Wu did not. When she turned 100 in 2014, her old customers filled up a hotel ballroom for her birthday party.
Born in China in 1915, her love of cooking was born while secretly watching the maid prepare meals for the family.
Before World War II broke out, when a friend offered her a one-way ticket on a New York-bound ocean liner, she took it.
While pursuing a degree at Columbia University, she met King Yan Wu. They married, had three children and moved to L.A., and she was immediately appalled by the heavy faux-cantonese dishes she encountered in the city’s Chinese restaurants.
“Chop suey everywhere,” she complained to USA Today.
Wu opened her restaurant in 1959. To drum up business she wrote a letter to members of her church and asked a friend, who was a studio executive, to spread the word about Madame Wu’s Garden. It worked.