‘No one can replace him’: Brisbane dining pioneer dies

Billy Wong, pioneering restaurateur and owner of Billy’s Pine and Bamboo Restaurant in Cannon Hill, has died. He was 71.

Wong passed away in late January after a lengthy battle with cancer, son Kim Wong said.

The Wong family had been sitting on the news while the restaurant traded through the busy Lunar New Year period.

Kim said his father hadn’t worked on the floor for more than a year while he dealt with the side effects of chemotherapy, although he would often stop in to catch up with staff.

“[The treatment] was going well, it was improving,” Kim said. “But then it got worse, so it was unfortunate.

“Throughout it all, even when he was ill, he was himself. He hadn’t changed a bit, despite obviously losing a bit of weight … he was positive-minded until the very end.”

Positive-minded is how many Pine & Bamboo regulars will remember Billy. With his smiling eyes and signature suspenders and flat-top hairdo, he had a friendly, energetic charisma that was powerful enough to fill Billy’s 200-seat dining room.

The Wong family migrated to Australia in the early 90s. In Hong Kong, they had owned a food manufacturing business, and it gave Billy the confidence to take on the Cannon Hill restaurant in 1990.

“It wasn’t so popular because Cannon Hill back then was more industrial,” Kim said. “But he hung in there, and then towards the late ’90s, everything started to pick up because a lot of the industrial buildings moved away, and it became more commercial, with offices moving in.”

On reflection, Billy’s was perfectly timed to capitalise on Australia’s strengthening ties to Hong Kong during the Asian region’s boom years in the 1990s, as well as Brisbane locals’ greater interest and understanding of Cantonese and Chinese food.

Names such as Central and Kowloon and Kai Tak were slipping into parlance. Seemingly, everyone had a friend whose uncle was a pilot for Cathay Pacific.

“When we came to Australia, Asian food had been around for a while, but not in detail,” Kim said. “You’d get those very common dishes, such as beef and black bean, and sweet-and-sour pork.

“Our menu consists of 200-odd dishes. I admire that the kitchen has been able to cope with so many dishes on the menu for 30-odd years. It gives the customers options, and more reason to come back. And so they slowly branch out.

“But Dad brought over more detailed dishes as well. We’re from Hong Kong, so we’ve got Cantonese dishes, but we’ve also done interpretations of dishes from other parts of China, like Peking duck pancakes.

“People back then would be, like, ‘What? You’re eating duck skin on a pancake? Never heard of it.’ But they would try new things and they would like it, and it started picking up from there.”

Peking duck remains a Billy’s signature, prepared over a number of days and carved at the table, much like it is in Hong Kong. It’s a hit with the locals, but a bunch of high-profile chefs are also card-carrying fans – Louis Tikaram (Stanley), Oscar Solomon (Greca and Yoko), and Jason Barratt (Supernormal and Bar Miette) among them.

Over the years, other dishes have become classics, such as the restaurant’s picnic chicken and beggar’s chicken.

Kim said Billy’s passing would not affect the restaurant’s future, and that a dinner was being organised for regulars after the Wong family kept the funeral small and private, at Billy’s request.

“The restaurant will definitely continue. It’s his legacy,” he said. “We’re going to continue with business and trading … His memory will live on through those relationships he’s made [with diners].

“A lot of customers have only just found out, so we’re in the process of organising a special night at the restaurant, where families and friends of my father will come for a final send-off. It was a customer’s idea.

“I was overwhelmed with how everyone reacted to his situation, and of course his passing. It made me think it’s not just a restaurant or a business. There are so many memories and value in each family that came here.

Of the funeral, Kim said it was small. “It wasn’t public because he knew it would affect a lot of people, that they would get upset, and he didn’t want to interrupt them with work and other things.”

Is Kim proud of his father?

“Yeah, I’m bloody proud of him,” he said. “There’s no one who can replace him. It’s just his character and how he acts. I’ve never seen anyone like him.”