Zheng Zongyang, one of the cofounders-nicknamed the "anthropologist in the kitchen" by his friends because he studied anthropology for his bachelor's and master's degrees-lived in the Tibet autonomous region for a year to do field studies after graduating from University College London in 2010, and began to get picky about the food he'd eat.
"In August, after harvesting highland barley with the herdsmen, I would lie on it, smell its fragrance and eat some zanba (roasted barley flour)-made from highland barley and yogurt-while chatting with them," says Zheng.
"That sweetness only belongs to Tibet," explains the 33-year-old. "Just like the taste of meat from the black goats that live next to Aiding Lake and is unique to the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
"My original intention was to bring all these delicious ingredients, about which, most people are not aware of, to their lives."
Zheng visited the edge of the Taklimakan desert in Xinjiang to find cistanche; he cut the fresh lotus seeds around Dongting Lake in Hunan province, and tried to find the green crab at the cold Kanas Lake in Xinjiang.
To gather the best ingredients from around the world, Zheng even asked his pilot friend to bring back fresh food from wherever he flies. "He is no longer the handsome captain that walks as if he is on the wing any more, because he is always laden down with ingredients," Zheng says.
For one single salad at Fireside, the ingredients could come from eight different countries-tofu skin from China, Italian parsley, tiger prawns from England's coastal waters, red snappers from Japan, avocados from Turkey and lettuce from Russia-all mixed and seasoned with Ukrainian black pepper and French butter.
