Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese and Thai dishes all on offer

When Thi Loan Hoang, who along with her husband Thanh Dong Nguyen runs the Shanghai 1 and Shanghai 3 restaurants in Lucerne, heard through a friend that the Blinker restaurant at number 15 Alte Steinhauserstrasse was to close, she applied to take over the premises and was delighted when she was accepted.

For the past five months, the couple and their team have been re-designing the interior of the restaurant, with much wood and stone in evidence. “We always had the idea of opening a restaurant in Zug,” said the 45-year-old Vietnamese national, who works in the front, whereas her husband is chef along with another from Japan, and others being sought.

In all, their team numbers eight people so far, with Edi Koka as managing director.

With lots of workplaces in this area, Loan Hoang sees much potential, the restaurant opening hours being from 10.30am until 2.30pm and from 5.30pm until 11.30pm every day. A website for the 200-seat restaurant, which, as mentioned, not only serves Vietnamese dishes but also Chinese, Japanese and Thai ones as well, is currently in the planning stage.

Anyone who has been to the afore-mentioned restaurants in Lucerne will know that one huge feature of both is the aquaria with freshwater fish they have, with a six-metre-long one being set up in these premises in Cham, too. “They are my husband’s passion,” she said, adding how he had angel, surgeon and anemone fish swimming among the coral there.

Thi Loan Huang actually arrived in Liechtenstein 35 years ago and opened her first restaurant there in 1999, going on to open the first Shanghai restaurant in Lucerne in 2002.