According to a news report, Madame Wu, whose renowned Southern California restaurant drew Hollywood’s biggest personalities for four decades, passed away at age 106. Soon after it first opened in 1959, Madame Wu’s Garden on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica became a popular dining spot known for its cuisine and pagoda-style design with jade statues, a stone waterfall, and a fountain filled with koi.
Madame Wu herself was renowned for greeting Tinseltown’s elite while donning a floor-length silk gown and answering the phone to collect orders for takeout. The Los Angeles Times announced Saturday that she passed away on September 19. Madame Wu claimed that upon arriving from China and discovering mainly heavy faux-Cantonese cuisine, she was motivated to create the restaurant.
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According to the Los Angeles Times, Princess Grace of Monaco preferred the Peking roast duck at Madame Wu’s Garden while Gregory Peck and Paul Newman preferred the shrimp toast and crab puffs. Mae West preferred the cold melon soup. The late television presenter Merv Griffin famously told the newspaper, “Everyone in this town knows Madame Wu. One of the most beautiful, elegant, and lovely women I’ve ever known.
In 1998, she shut down the eatery, quickly regretted her choice, and launched Madame Wu’s Asian Bistro & Sushi. Although that restaurant closed down, Madame Wu continued to be loved. In 2014, when she turned 100, her former clients packed a hotel ballroom for her celebration.
On October 24, 1915, Sylvia Cheng was born. She spent her childhood in Jiujiang, a city southwest of Shanghai, where she saw the maid make meals for her wealthy family. Later, the family relocated to Hong Kong from Shanghai. She travelled to New York City on an ocean ship during World War II.
She subsequently reflected, “I don’t know how I had the courage. In America, I had no family. The journey took 40 days, and the entire time there was a blackout due to the conflict.”
She met King Yan Wu, a brilliant chemist, at Columbia University while obtaining a degree in education. They got married, had three kids, and then went to Los Angeles where she opened a restaurant and he accepted a position as an engineer at Hughes Aircraft Co.
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She also published recipes, made frequent television appearances, and was involved in charity work, especially at the City of Hope Cancer Center after her daughter Loretta passed away at 34 from breast cancer. According to the Los Angeles Times, Wu is survived by his sons George and Patrick as well as a large number of grandkids. 2011 saw her husband’s passing. The couple had been wed for 67 years.
