China's hotpot billionaire ready to take on the world

Beijing

ZHANG Yong, the co-founder and chairman of Haidilao, one of China's most successful hotpot chains, remembers his first time eating out. As a 19-year-old welder in Jianyang, Sichuan, it was exhilarating to escape the proletarian company cafeteria and dine in an actual restaurant, a rare experience for him at the time.

But the staff was rude and the hotpot didn't inspire. Then came a twist of fate that would change China's culinary history: Mr Zhang bolted from his job at a state-owned tractor factory in a dispute over a company apartment for him and his fiancée. In 1994, he opened his first restaurant with just four tables.

Today, he runs the nation's most popular chain of restaurants that serves up boiling soup broth with meat, seafood, vegetables and noodles. Haidilao has 196 outlets in 60 Chinese ci…