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CHEF and R E S TAU R AT EU R
H AI H AI The couple behind an ar tful, emerging restaurant group in Minneapolis. by JORIE JACOBI / Photography by ATTILIO D’AGOSTINO
The rise of food trucks had begun, and, on a whim, Twin Cities native Christina Nguyen and husband Birk Grudem decided to abandon two successful careers and start one together. He’d been working as a screen printer and t-shirt designer and bartender, while Nguyen put her business degree to use running a boutique that sold locally designed clothing, when they decided it was time for a major shift. What resulted were 12- to 16-hour days churning out flavorful Latin-inspired cuisine that would catch the city’s attention and near-immediate recognition, a foreshadowing of the acclaim that would land Nguyen on the list of James Beard Award semifinalists for Best Chef: Midwest in 2018. They served arepas—a classic South American dish of cornmeal cakes filled with meat and cheese and hard to come by elsewhere in the area. The food truck Hola Arepa quickly formed a fan base, which supported a brick-and-mortar location in Minneapolis’ Kingfield neighborhood. The young restaurateurs then opened a second eatery, Hai Hai, in northeast Minneapolis. Just as at Hola Arepa, Nguyen assumed the role of head chef, while Grudem handled all front-of-house matters. The move brought fast, hard-won success in an industry with daunting turnover and failure rates.
their hometown, which encouraged them to open Hai Hai. How did you make your way into the restaurant industry?
I didn’t get my start in a traditional way. I went to school for business, but cooking is a passion I’ve always had. Before my husband and I got married, we were working on separate endeavors and felt like we really needed to shake it up. We thought it would be fun to have our own food truck. I don’t know why we thought that [laughs]; It’s so much work—but it’s not the same as spending $500,000 on a restaurant build-out. That was Hola Arepa, which had a very slim menu of things I’d tried when I traveled abroad. We had five different kinds of arepas with a few different sides. Then during the off-season, and depending on how cold the winter was, Birk and I would spend three or four months traveling to South America and Southeast Asia, exploring and trying new food. We continued to run the food truck for catering and special events for a few years after opening our first restaurant, and then we opened Hai Hai. The whole process has been very intuitive. Your parents immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam. What have they shared with you about that process
Hai Hai’s Vietnamese focus pays homage to Nguyen’s family and heritage, as her parents were both born and raised in Vietnam. During her travels there with Grudem, they discovered unique dishes that weren’t being served in
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and their life there?
They actually lived in Saigon and fled from the war in 1975. They told me a bit about it when I was a kid. As time went by, I gathered more information and started
