cuisine art
.k..t qie unaag-ilssm taealomke egodnw g wildith a
Haute barbecue is perhaps the greatest of all
culinary oxymorons, but chef Anita Lo is no stranger
to shifting traditional culinary boundaries. In a city
where female chefs are still few and far between,
she’s a New York City anomaly, running the show at
two of the city’s restaurants: the intimate Michelin-
starred Annisa, established in 2000, and Bar Q,
opened in April 2008. So it might not be surprising
to find her forging an equally rare gastronomical
alliance between two of the world’s most diverse
locales—the American South and Asia. And while
going from world-class cuisine to refined home-
style food may seem to be a contradictory career
path, Bar Q represents a restaurant concept Lo
considered for over a decade.
Lo, a Michigan-born second generation
Chinese-American, cites her family’s influence
on the development of her cuisine, and this
is demonstrated throughout Bar Q’s menu. Her
kaffir lime margarita with a chili salt rim (called
the Margaret Lo) is named for Lo’s sister, while an
