Saigon Sex Abuse Restaurant Gone - Or Is It?

Will Irvine (he/him), Maya Field (she/her)

Saigon, the Willis Street restaurant where two employees were sexually abused by government officials from a travelling Vietnamese delegation, has closed its doors for good. On February 21st, within a day of receiving a personal grievance claim from survivor Ali Cook, Saigon shut up shop.

In its place is an extension of controversial chef Grant Kitchen’s business, Global Kitchen, which bears a stunning resemblance to the original restaurant in both form and operation. However, former employees say the connections may be more than skin-deep. 

So, who is Grant Kitchen? The new proprietor is no stranger to controversy, with his previous enterprise 1487 Eatery going bankrupt after facing extensive fines and restitution for abusing and underpaying employees. Kitchen reportedly attempted to pay the fines back with money he borrowed from 6 women he met on Tinder, each of which believed they were his exclusive partner. Despite insisting on financial hardship that left him unable to pay up, Stuff reported that Kitchen posted extensively on social media about extravagant overseas travel.

Global Kitchen’s new website uses the exact same format as Saigon’s now-deleted website. The interior of the restaurant seems to have changed very little, and the change of branding happened virtually overnight. To figure out whether the two businesses had any association, Salient contacted Giang Do, the owner of Saigon, who was present during the assaults and later accused the two survivors of lying about their experience. In a brief and frantic conversation, he denied any connection with Global Kitchen and insisted that he did not know its proprietor, Grant Kitchen. Do then hung up, and subsequent attempts to contact him by Stuff and Salient have proven futile. 

Despite obtaining his contact information from an associate, Salient was unable to contact Grant Kitchen. However, he later gave a statement to Stuff distancing himself from Do, and assuring that he does not want to have “anything to do with the previous occupant”.

Despite Do and Kitchen’s insistences, an anonymous former employee of Saigon told Salient that Kitchen was “close friends” with Do, and was occasionally involved in the operation of the original restaurant. “They said they were long-term business partners and friends… [Grant] spent two weeks at the restaurant teaching us how to be bartenders”. According to the employee, Kitchen used to “pick up women” at the bar. “He was always very sexual… lots of ‘that’s what she said’ jokes”. Salient was unable to corroborate these allegations. 

The allegations of sexual abuse aren’t the first time Do has been in the news for a serious scandal. Much like Kitchen, he operated a Manawatu business that underwent hefty fines for underpaying its employees. Do’s only remaining business, a citizenship program for Vietnamese immigrants that employs several primary school teachers, has since deleted its website. It is unclear whether the business is still in operation.

Nobody knows where Giang Do is right now, nor whether he will ever face consequences for what survivors allege was a significant abuse of his power. In the meantime, though, it seems like his infamous restaurant has simply passed from one close friend to another.