With her new dumpling bar, French-trained star chef Anita Lo elevates the humble pot sticker.

Before she opened her first Manhattan restaurant, Annisa, Anita Lo (an F&W Best New Chef 2001) made dumplings at home all the time. "They're cheap to prepare, but they can be labor intensive," she says. With the launch of her new Rickshaw Dumpling Bar, Lo will be overseeing an entire staff of dumpling makers. "The idea for Rickshaw is sort of like fast food, but with better flavors and design," she says. The menu will have six kinds of dumplings, from the traditional (pork and garlic chive pot stickers) to creative variations (chocolate soup dumplings). It seems almost anything can be a dumpling. "A dumpling is just a stuffed package of something," Lo says.

All but the tofu and the garlic chive dumplings can be assembled and frozen for up to 1 month.

Published April 2005