Washington D.C.
Owner David Lee, who had previously served as an officer in the Chinese Republican army, had immigrated to America in 1938. He settled in DC and for many years ran the Seven Seas Grill, a seafood restaurant in Brightwood. After switching to a career in real estate, he was persuaded to return to the restaurant business when he at last had the opportunity to invite experienced Chinese chefs to come to Washington and help him open an authentic Chinese eatery. The result was the Empress, a highly regarded restaurant at 1018 Vermont Avenue NW that opened in 1967. Like the Peking, the Empress offered authentic Mandarin dishes, considered the cuisine of royalty in China, and it wowed Washington critics. Unlike traditional Chinese restaurants, it was formal and pricey, but critics thought it was well worth it.
By the early 1970s, the Empress had four locations. Then, in 1974, the restaurants’ two owners agreed to divide the eateries between them and go their separate ways. David Lee took the two that were located at 1875 Connecticut Avenue NW, just north of Dupont Circle, and in the Rockville Shopping Mall in Rockville, MD. The original Vermont Avenue location, along with one on Thayer Avenue in Silver Spring, MD, went to Lu Hu Chuen “Trudie” Ball (1924-2015), who had partnered with Lee on the original Empress. Born in Shanghai, Ball had served as a member of the Taiwanese delegation to the United Nations in the 1950s and came to Washington in 1960. In addition to the two Trudie Ball’s Empress locations, she opened Trudie’s, at 33rd and M Streets NW in Georgetown in 1976. In the spring of 1974, just after the split, food critic Dresden sampled both Trudie Ball’s Empress on Vermont Avenue and David Lee’s Empress on Connecticut Avenue, finding them equally excellent. The rival Empresses continued in business into the 1980s but by some accounts were never as good as the Empress had been in its heyday. In any event, by the 1980s Chinese restaurants of all types, from simple Chinese American carryout’s to sophisticated, high-end culinary destinations, were here to stay.
(BUSINESS IS CLOSED)
Circa 1970's
27 Matches
1 Match Missing
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