Sydney restaurant’s ‘iconic’ response to one-star review

A Sydney chef has discovered the secret to restaurant success isn't good reviews – it's spectacularly destroying the bad ones with zero filter.

Screenshots of scathing Google reviews are usually bad news for restaurants, but for one Sydney venue, they’ve become an unexpected drawcard.

Diners are now seeking out Potts Point’s Lady Chu after its owner, Nahji Chu, went viral recently for her no-nonsense replies to one-star critics.

One social media user even admitted, “Not going to lie, I wanna visit this place now because of the responses”.

Chu’s replies are a far cry from the typical “sorry you had that experience” PR spin.

To a diner named Hilary who labelled her visit “deeply disappointing,” she wrote: “We didn’t ask for your recommendation. Try not to blame others for your misery, Hils. The keyboard is not your secret power”.

Chu’s response to a one-star review. Picture: Google

Someone else complained about being seated outside, slow food service, dirty tables, and Chu supposedly being ‘under the influence’ of something and yelling at staff.

In a lengthy response, Chu wrote: “Thanks for visiting without a booking on a fully-booked Wednesday and still somehow getting a table (miracle, right?). You waltzed in mid-service chaos and mistook passion for possession and vibing for violence. I wasn’t ‘under the influence’ of anything except Sydney Council, capitalism, and too many dumplings.

“If you caught a bit of theatre while you dined, congratulations, you got dinner and a show. The ‘dirty table’ you mentioned had just survived a table of six Negronis and one influencer.

“Sorry the food took an hour, however, it is very unlikely! But we were busy keeping the city alive and keeping up with entitled walk-ins. Next time, book a table and I’ll personally light your candle and whisper your order to the chef like it’s foreplay.”

Another no-nonsense reply to a negative review. Picture: Google

Speaking to news.com.au, Chu says she has no plans to tone it down.

“My replies aren’t about being combative. They’re about honesty,” she said.

“I reply the way I cook; direct, honest, zero MSG. Sydney’s hospitality scene has been muzzled by fear of bad reviews, and I’m just not playing that game.

“If someone dishes it out publicly, they should expect a little seasoning back.”

Chu has built a reputation for being unapologetic. Picture: Instagram/ladychu

She believes small businesses are expected to swallow unfair criticism to “look professional,” but says transparency is better than “performative politeness”.

Chu also claims to have rejected rewards and hats so that she doesn’t have to “play into the media’s or the public’s ownership” of her and can run her business how she pleases.

“My team and I work too hard to let inaccurate reviews or hats go unchallenged,” she said.

Her Vietnamese eatery has become somewhat of a hotspot. Picture: Instagram/ladychu

Celebrities and Sydney’s elite regularly dine there. Picture: Instagram/ladychu

It’s all part of the persona Chu has spent years cultivating in Sydney’s hospitality scene.

The Vietnamese-Laotian entrepreneur, who arrived in Australia as a refugee in the late 1970s, first became known as the ‘rice paper roll queen’ behind Miss Chu, which grew to multiple tuckshops and a catering arm across Sydney, Melbourne and London before collapsing in 2014, forcing her to start again.

She’s rebuilt around Lady Chu in late 2021, a small but popular Potts Point site that has quietly expanded along a side street of Kings Cross.

She works the floor every night as executive chef, manager, and maître d’, and also manages bookings, seating people, taking orders, supervising the kitchen, handling the accounts, and marketing.

Diners love the cosy and leafy outdoor space. Picture: Instagram/ladychu

She’s had multiple run-ins with council over the years, most recently in May when she was ordered by rangers to move pot plants they said were blocking the footpath.

A video provided to news.com.au by Chu shows her confronting two rangers mid-service, telling them they were “freaking me and my customers out”.

They were there to address neighbours’ complaints that the restaurant’s plants blocked pedestrian access to the footpath.

“I’m not a f***ing naughty school kid, so don’t speak to me like that,” she tells them.

“I’m simply trying to speak to you …” one of the rangers said, before Chu replied, “I need respect. And respect what I do, please.

“I’m paying f***ing taxes, and I’m paying your wages, so f*** off. I’m trying to activate this f***ing dead city, so don’t shut it down.”

Sydney Mayor Clover Moore reprimanded Chu’s “torrent of abuse” against the rangers and accused her of treating a “public footpath” like a “private courtyard”.

Chu, however, said the council were being “really pedantic and petty” and stood by the language she used towards the rangers.

Chu in a heated exchange with council rangers. Picture: Supplied

She also said that the ongoing complaints, both about her restaurant’s street presence and Google reviews, are “just water off a duck’s back now”.

“That’s what happens when you become high-profile and successful,” she added.

“If I were a dead, quiet, little, tiny cafe, there’d be no problem. But unfortunately, people love to target me because I’m successful, I suppose, and I’m a Vietnamese woman, and there are some white people in this area who just don’t like that.

“I think the people who are making these complaints are old men, or just old people in general. They’re born and bred Potts Point and there’s a Vietnamese refugee doing well in the area and they don’t want a bar of it.”

Originally published as Sydney restaurant’s ‘iconic’ response to one-star review