Dynamic Duos

Yin and Yang. Adam and Eve. Posh and Becks. Mario and Luigi. Where would the world be without these dynamic duos? This month TALK highlights a few of the city’s very own power couples who are making waves in the food and beverage, entertainment, creative, environmental and art industries.

Stefan and Yoshi Stiller

Any restaurant worth its salt strives to maintain seamless communication between the front of the house and the kitchen. Chef Stefan Stiller discovered the magic ingredient 12 years ago by marrying his General Manager, Yoshi. 

The dynamo hospitality team met by chance when a friend recommended Stefan ask Yoshi to help while planning a wine festival in Germany. Yoshi was on holiday, but she grudgingly came in and the rest is history.

Now, at the couple’s namesake restaurant, Stiller’s, Yoshi manages the floor of the restaurant, while Stefan heads up the kitchen. They try to keep their roles separate, but more than a decade of co-existing as colleagues, as well as man and wife, have given the couple an almost omniscient ability to predict the other’s moves.

“If I’m working and Stefan is not, I can look at a plate and say, ‘No, Stefan would do it this way,’” Yoshi explains. “And because I know him so well, the staff trusts me to know what he wants.”

While their first-hand knowledge of each other’s habits comes in handy at the restaurant, living and working together has its ups and downs. While Yoshi was sitting her graduate school exams, Stefan opened Grand Cru. “I thought, ‘Oh great! Perfect timing,” Yoshi laughs. It ended up working out for the best, as the restaurant received a Michelin star in just 14 months.

Juggling the restaurant and family life is another challenge for the culinary power couple, especially when it comes to raising Zoe, their eight year old daughter. While they want her to inherit their love of food, they hope she doesn’t follow in their F&B footsteps.

“Zoe asked me the other day, ‘So since the name of the restaurant is Stiller’s, if you’re not there and Daddy’s not there, then I’m the boss, right?’” says Yoshi. They both shake their heads.

“We love our jobs, but we want a more relaxing, less stressful life for our daughter,” says Stefan.

Stiller’s. The Cool Docks, 6-7F, Bldg 3, 505 Zhongshan Nan Lu, near Fuxing Dong Lu. Tel: 6152 6501. Web: www.stillers-restaurant.cn

Xiang Jing & Qu Guangci

Sculptors Xiang Jing and Qu Guangci are frank about their dislike of being written about together – the fact they are married seems inconsequential to their art. While they both have distinctive artistic styles and careers, their individual success and importance makes it an inescapable truth that they are seen as a power couple within the world of contemporary art. Admitting this inevitable pairing, Qu muses, “We are like two symbols that can not be separated.”

Xiang predominately works with painted fibre-glass, often focusing on women with natural, imperfect figures; she counts renowned art collector Charles Saatchi amongst her fans. Qu, who works with bronze and fibre-glass, creates more symbolic figurines with political and historical context.

Beijing-born Xiang and Qu, from Shanghai, met in the early 1990s while attending the capital’s Central Academy of Fine Arts’ sculpture programme. By the end of the decade they were married and had moved south to take up teaching positions at the Fine Arts College of Shanghai Normal University. Since the relocation their careers have simultaneously experienced a meteoric rise, each with a growing résumé of worldwide exhibitions and an increasing dominance of the auction market – recent domestic sales volume for works by the duo surpass all other Chinese sculptors combined.

There are definite benefits to sharing an artistic profession with one’s spouse. Qu says, “We are constantly flattering each other, boosting each other’s confidence. It’s easier to understand your partner and, of course, you can share materials.” Xiang adds, “We try not to interfere with each other creatively, but other than that we help each other as much as possible.”

While the couple called an end to their ten year era in Shanghai last year, closing their studio in Minhang and departing back to Beijing, their legacy and intimate connection with the city’s art scene fortunately remains.

Qu Guangci – ART IN SPACE @ Times Square Mall. On view until 19 July. Web: www.x--q.com

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Bobbie & James Cornell

Since opening in 2006, New Zealand-product store Nuzi, meaning ‘button’ in Chinese and symbolising a unity between the two cultures, has been an island of consistency in Tianzifang’s sea of constant change. This boutique in the middle of the creative art district’s Lane 248 is a labour of love and patriotic pride for siblings Bobbie and James Cornell. For the Auckland natives, the shop is very much a family affair – its continued success and steady expansion are a testament to the sister-brother duo’s teamwork and plucky Kiwi spirit.

After leaving a decade-long career as an architect in Hong Kong, Bobbie initially established the space to act as her studio. Upon further reflection she instead decided to use the space as a platform to highlight New Zealand designers, artists and nature-inspired products. As the store’s popularity quickly grew, she asked her brother James to help out. “I was more than happy to make the move,” he says. “I thought it’d be a long holiday – in some ways it still seems like it is!”

The pair clearly plays to each other's strengths, Bobbie providing the vision while James is the more realistic, pragmatic of the two. With the support of their tight-knit family, a focus on communication and much trial and error, the two continue to defy Tianzifang’s astronomically high business failure rate. Bobbie notes, “You need to be very open-minded and although it can be hard – listen!”

Such is Nuzi’s success that not only is it a destination for tourists and artistically-inclined city residents, but also a steady stream of students seeking wisdom on running a creative company. The recent addition of a second floor bar, complete with a variety of Kiwi beer and alcohol, means the pair will continue to push the boundaries of the Nuzi concept.

Nuzi. Shop 30. Lane 248 Taikang Lu, near Sinan Lu. Tel: 5465 3245. Web: www.nuzi.com.cn

Norman Gosney & Amelia Kallman

Shanghai roared into the 1920s with showgirls, jazz and debauchery clinging to its coattails, but the party ended all too soon and the city’s nightlife never quite recovered – until now. Almost a century later, Norman Gosney and Amelia Kallman are reviving the infamous decade’s decadence and romance in the Paris of the East with their vaudeville and burlesque club, Gosney & Kallman’s Chinatown. 

A classically-trained actress, Amelia had no experience with burlesque when she met Norman after crashing a party at his Chelsea Hotel penthouse. Initially, she dismissed the premise, but Norman quickly turned her on to the genre. Before they knew it, Amelia was co-hosting and co-producing shows at Dutch Weissmann’s, Norman's illegal speakeasy.

In 2007, Norman and Amelia set their sights internationally and decided that Shanghai was ripe for their brand of entertainment. After opening up Chinatown in 2008, they perform five nights a week and stay busy with the business side the rest of their waking moments, an arrangement that works for the dedicated husband and wife team.

“The old chestnut is that couples shouldn’t live and work together. In our case it has been not only a pleasure, but, in running Chinatown, it’s a necessity,” Norman says. “After shows, when we get home, we use the buzz from performing to write and devise new material. It shouldn’t work, but it surely does.”

The doting couple doesn’t always work together so peacefully. “The only time we ever really argue is over ‘artistic differences.’ We can both be quite stubborn about our visions,” says Amelia. “But our best work comes from collaborating, and doing good work together makes us a better, happier couple too.”

Shanghai denizens can head up to the former Buddhist monastery in Hongkou to see the pair’s real-life working relationship on stage as they bring the depravity of the city’s heyday back to life.

Chinatown. 471 Zhapu Lu, by Haining Lu. Tel: 6258 2078. Web: www.chinatownshanghai.com

Mihela Hladin & Ina Kukovic

In a country where environmental protection comes in second to profit, educating Chinese people about the merits of sustainable business practices is a long and hard road, but that hasn’t stopped Mihela Hladin and Ina Kukovic from trying. The Slovenian sisters behind Greenovate, a “green” consulting firm, have thrown their heart, souls and lifelong passion for the environment into reaching out to businesses and youth across China.

Growing up in Velenje, a small coal-mining town in Slovenia, Mihela and Ina witnessed the effects of pollution first-hand. Their mother started an environmental engineering company to combat the degradation and enlisted her daughters’ help in the fight, inspiring their zeal for sustainable practices. “Mum is definitely our role model,” says Ina. “She taught us to fight for what we believe in.”

Now, the sisters have translated their combined experience and shared passion into a practical business that also manages not one, but two non-profits. They acknowledge that their differing personalities are a boon to the office, as Ina’s diplomatic demeanor balances out Mihela’s frank nature, and their long-gone sibling rivalry gives them perspective on the other’s strengths.

Not just colleagues, the sisters also call the same apartment home – an arrangement they enjoy, but they do admit that there is a downside to being coworkers and roommates. It’s difficult for them to leave their work at the office, but they make an effort to take Sundays off completely, agreeing not to mention Greenovate at home. And all that togetherness has started to create a mind meld that can be helpful at times and exceedingly annoying at others. “Sometimes we end up buying matching clothes, even when we’re on different continents!” Mihela says.

When they’re not accidentally dressing up like twins in different time zones, Mihela and Ina plan on keeping their family tradition of environmental protection alive as Greenovate kicks off its fourth year of promoting corporate sustainability.

Greenovate. Web: www.greenovate.net