The pioneering Sydney restaurant launched co-owner Luke Nguyen into the ranks of international celebrity chefs and brought Vietnamese cooking to a new audience in the city.
One of Australia’s most influential Vietnamese restaurants, Darlinghurst’s Red Lantern, will shut on Saturday, November 22. The closure will end an impressive 23-year run.
The Sydney restaurant launched co-owner Luke Nguyen into the ranks of international celebrity chefs, with his catalogue of television programs and hospitality ventures. Nguyen’s Red Lantern business partners, sister Pauline Nguyen, and chef Mark Jensen, have had their own success as authors and in broadcasting, while juggling the demands of the restaurant.
A particularly tough winter across Sydney hospitality contributed to the decision not to renew the lease at Red Lantern. Jensen said diner numbers had dropped, and cited a number of factors behind the closure including the economy, relentless rain and Sydneysiders’ fascination with new restaurants.
When Red Lantern opened at its first location, on Crown Street in Surry Hills, in 2002, siblings Luke and Pauline Nguyen were part of a pioneering generation of “Cabramatta kids” bringing something different to a new audience in the city.
Pauline Nguyen said the prevailing attitude to Vietnamese restaurants at the time was “formica tables and cheap produce”.
“We thought ‘let’s bring this food to a new audience, with world-class service and quality produce’,” she said.
Jensen, a chef with fine-dining pedigree, previously worked with the pair at The Olympic Hotel in Paddington before launching Red Lantern.
“Mark had never held a wok or a cleaver,” Pauline said. A quick learner, Jensen quickly picked up the nuances of the Vietnamese cuisine, using his own skill set, riffing with Luke in the kitchen to create enduring dishes such as the caramelised pork, prawn and pork fairy floss rice cakes.
Despite opening new Darlinghurst premises in 2012, Jensen said there were people who said they loved Red Lantern but still thought it was in Surry Hills. The restaurant moved out of the Crown Street site in 2017.
“I remember the GFC [global financial crisis],” Pauline Nguyen said of previous challenges. “We either go into the fetal position or make some changes.”
Red Lantern dug even deeper at the time with quality produce, and Jensen, who wrote a book about sustainable cooking, was an early embracer of its practice. The trio had been active in keeping Red Lantern relevant: prolific on social media, updating the interior and introducing revolutionary ideas such as operating a barber shop out of the restaurant outside operating hours.
Red Lantern is also a survivor on a quiet strip of Riley Street. Neighbour Cafe Paci closed in 2015, eventually relocating to Newtown, and the chefs’ hatted Lankan Filling Station announced in July it would also be shutting.
During Red Lantern’s early days, Jensen and Pauline were married but they later split and continued to drive the business together. Last year, they started a broader industry campaign supporting local, independent restaurants, which often lack the financial advantages of restaurant groups. Speaking with The Herald last year, Jensen dismissed the misconception that being established for years means Red Lantern will always be there.
The pair are still encouraging Sydneysiders to get out and support their favourite restaurants, including Red Lantern, which will run special events and chef collaborations over its final two months.
“Even after 22 years, Red Lantern’s contemporary take on Vietnamese flavours still feels, well, contemporary,” the most recent Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide said.
As for life after Red Lantern, Luke Nguyen is involved in a restaurant at Sydney Fish Market, Jensen will turn his focus to his start-up Tiger Purrr Chai brand, and Pauline Nguyen will continue her sideline career in keynote speaking, which started after she penned bestseller, Secrets of The Red Lantern.
“If there’s one thing I’m really proud of, between the three of us we’ve built a real ecosystem that will continue,” Pauline Nguyen said.
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