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Winnie Sun isn’t normal. And we mean that as a compliment!
The trajectory of her adult life, and the seemingly supernatural ease with which she’s navigated it, is unlike anything we’ve encountered in the history of Jewkarta. Despite aspiring to a law career not long ago — and growing up (first in China, then in Burnaby) with an extremely conservative palate — she’s now a partner in two wildly successful Afghan-themed restaurants: Afghan Kitchen, in South Surrey, and the more recent Zarak, in Vancouver.
But Winnie is far from a behind-the-scenes participant. Most nights, you can find her behind the bar at Zarak, where she personally assembles countless cocktails (both traditional and non-alcoholic) that are among the most creative, flavourful and visually stunning to be found anywhere in Metro Vancouver. She has no formal bartender training, and drank very infrequently before she decided to self-impose the challenge of building Zarak’s beverage program.
And did we mention? She’s only 27!
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
What’s your earliest memory of being taken to a restaurant?
It would have been in China: the staff cafeteria in the department store where my uncle worked. My family used to go there quite a bit when I was a child. Of course, it was Chinese food — just local cuisine. I’m from Shandong, which is a province kind of wedged between Shanghai and Beijing on the east coast. A lot of soy sauce is used in the cooking there. I always liked these fried pumpkin-croquette things. It was one of the only things I liked as a child. I hated vegetables and I hated meat.
All vegetables and all meat?
Yeah. I only enjoyed carbs. (laughs)
When did you leave China?
When I was eight. We moved to Burnaby.
Of all the places in the world, why there?
I think my father chose Canada just for its safety and comfort. He never considered the States — he hates it there — so Canada was the obvious choice. We were supposed to settle in Toronto, but I think he found the weather here more likeable.
Did moving here expand your palate?
When we moved here, my mom was still quite young. We only have a 21- or 22-year difference between us. Now, looking back, I understand it a bit more: She was actually a medical professional, but she quit her job to move here. She didn’t know how to cook to save her life. (laughs) No interest or desire, so we didn’t really eat at home much; we would get takeout. The closest restaurant was Sushi Town, so we used to eat sushi every week, and we ate a lot of pizza. Still a lot of carbs! I think the most nutritious meal I would have was chicken teriyaki.
And your medical-professional mom was okay with that?
Yeah, she was. She started cooking towards my early teens, and then I saw a change in her towards wanting to be more of a homebody. I think a lot of things that happened in my life make sense because of that, just because I used to eat so differently than I do now. I have an appreciation of the way that I grew up, because otherwise I don’t think all of this would have happened.
When I was in high school — and especially in my last year — I took a lot of adventures on my own and came to Vancouver a lot by myself, because I was working there anyway. And that’s when I started going to independently-owned restaurants and cafés. I would say the meal that really opened my eyes was brunch at The Acorn. This was 10-or-so years ago. It was a balsamic-vinegar-dressed fruit salad. I don’t know if I even remember that correctly. But I was sitting there, having this vegan breakfast, and I was just so confused as to what was going on in my mouth. I didn’t like a lot of fresh things. But I think, from that moment on, I started really experimenting with what I ate. And then I started travelling a bit more — to Europe, mostly. That was where I found a lot of different food, like cheeses, and vegetables prepared very differently from what I could’ve imagined, like asparagus and radishes.
This is probably the question you get asked more than any other. You studied law, with the intention of turning that into a career. How did that lead to what you’re doing now?
Yeah, it’s an interesting question. I actually have a background working in sports management; I worked for the Whitecaps for a couple of years. And then I went to Beijing to work for a global internship company, and that was the same year I interned in a legal position at [textbook publisher] Pearson, and that was the job that made me want to pursue law school. So, I was in law school when I got a call from Hassib [Sarwari, co-owner of Afghan Kitchen and Zarak, as well as Winnie’s best friend], who I knew because we’d worked together at SportChek, before he opened Afghan Kitchen.
Coincidentally, that winter was when COVID happened, and my school sent all of the students back to their home countries, with the option to renew our degree or just continue it online. I hesitated to get involved with [Zarak, which hadn’t opened yet], because I still had about two years of law school left.
Hassib originally asked you to come aboard to oversee marketing — especially social media. How did you end up working behind the bar?
We looked at [the then-new, unoccupied space that would become Zarak] and I was like, “We can do this, but I don’t know how much help I’ll be because I want to finish my law degree.” But just coincidentally, everything fell into place that allowed me to jump into hospitality. Because of COVID, Afghan Kitchen was just doing takeout and delivery, and it was overwhelmingly busy, especially because we did a lot of discounts for healthcare professionals and first responders. Our sales skyrocketed that year. We reopened after the COVID situation settled down, and that was when I hopped behind the bar, just to see a different perspective on the restaurant, because I’d never done it before.
Had you ever made a cocktail before?
Never in my life.
Were you even a fan of alcoholic beverages?
I liked drinking the occasional cocktail here and there. I’m still not a big drinker, and I’m not a social drinker. I don’t really go out to have a drink. I didn’t know the difference between vodka, rum, tequila…
So how did you go about educating yourself?
I just mixed together different things, hoping it would taste good. And then, obviously, I’d be the first person to try it. If it was palatable to me and to Hassib, we were like, “Okay, why not serve this?” I remember the first cocktail I made was with bourbon, cognac, pistachio syrup, Earl Grey tea, aquafaba, and lemon.
You just thought, “Why don’t I mix together these six seemingly incompatible ingredients and see what happens”?
Exactly. Hassib loves pistachios and that’s why I did it. It’s called the Chasm-e-Pista, and it’s still, to this day, one of his favourite cocktails, and we still have it on the menu at Afghan Kitchen. I was like, “Okay, maybe I can do this.”
So then, we were planning for Zarak for about a year and a half before we opened, and that’s when I started to really try to learn more and try more. I was going around and trying more cocktails, to open up my palate and to perceive cocktails from a very different perspective and seeing why certain things worked together.
It’s one thing to decide, “I’m going to oversee the bar program and I’m going to make all of the drinks myself,” but the cocktails at Zarak are very different from those at any other restaurant I know of in Vancouver. And they’re also, for the most part, very much a reflection of, and a compliment to, Afghan cuisine. So, given your palate and where you grew up and the kind of foods you grew up eating, to what do you attribute having this natural instinct for flavours that complement each other?
Maybe it was a childhood deprived of flavour combinations (laughs), and just eating pepperoni and cheese or having, like, the most basic nigiri rolls.
But I put a lot of effort and energy into really thinking about flavours, and being very attuned to what I was eating, in my later years. When I was travelling, I paid the most attention to what I was eating, and I would go out of my way to go to a city that had a good café or restaurant. I was never into Michelin-starred restaurants; I was more into what was popular and reflective of local cuisine. Really trying to learn about different histories and cultures through that sense, I think, was very important. And also tying back to my childhood memories of those first restaurants I went to in China and realizing that, like, black sesame is a very important ingredient. I care a lot about [promoting] Afghan heritage through a lot of the drinks. We’re using stuff like cardamom, which I’m actually allergic to. That might be a funny thing to mention. I just get the worst rashes. I have all these marks on my skin due to cardamom.
And yet…
I have to use it.
And in creating a cocktail that has cardamom in it, you have to taste it.
Yeah. Without cardamom, it’s not an Afghan restaurant. It’s the most quintessential ingredient.
I mean, on the one hand, that’s not funny, but…
It’s hilarious! Just very paradoxical.
How often are you trying to come up with new cocktail ideas?
Constantly. I would say I’ve developed about 500 recipes, just because I get very bored. If you make me do the same thing over and over again, I will not be okay. My mind just can’t settle, in that sense. So, even when I’m just at home — even this morning, I was thinking about a carrot-cake cocktail, just because I was craving carrot cake! [Writer’s note: Winnie did indeed concoct a carrot-cake cocktail. It’ll be appearing on Zarak’s menu soon.]
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