From the day that restaurateur Jim Fiala hired Thu Rein Oo as a dishwasher at The Crossing, he knew the young refugee was going to be something special.
Oo, who was born in Myanmar (formerly Burma) and fled during the internal conflict, spent two years in a refugee camp in Malaysia, where he tended a garden. In 2007, he moved to the U.S. to live with his uncle in Indianapolis. Several years later, he moved to St. Louis, where another refugee from Myanmar, a friend who was working at The Crossing, suggested Oo apply for a dishwasher opening.
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After watching him work that first day, Fiala and a longtime busboy looked at each other and said, “He’s going to be good.”
Oo started his restaurant career working double shifts: a lunch shift that started at 7 a.m. at the former Terrace View restaurant downtown and a dinner shift that started in the afternoon at The Crossing in Clayton. He also worked at Liluma, Fiala’s former restaurant in the Central West End.
He balanced his restaurant duties with studying for the citizenship exam. A colleague, Brooke Sloss, helped Oo study, though it turned out that he’d already learned most of the material. “He already knew the 13 colonies and the Supreme Court justices,” Sloss recalls. “We had someone coming for dinner named John Roberts, and he said, ‘The Supreme Court justice?’”
Oo was granted U.S. citizenship in 2013. After his exam, he took a vacation to Burma to visit his parents, whom he hadn’t seen in eight years. When he returned to the U.S., he worked even harder.
Oo had never cooked before, but he wanted to learn. While washing dishes, he’d observe the chefs at the kitchen stations. On slower nights, a co-worker would show him how to make salads and desserts. Soon, Oo was working the salad station—and then the fish station.
His first night on the fish station was a Friday, when it was “a little crazy,” he recalls. “Jimmy almost kicked me off the fish line. I said, ‘Jimmy, give me a couple weeks.’” Fiala conceded, and soon Oo was running the fish station with ease.
Oo, whose favorite dishes to cook are fish-based, was happy to stay at the fish station. When he had an opportunity to move to the grill station, a higher position in the kitchen, he turned it down. But when several grill chefs left, Oo stepped in to do their jobs and his own.
Oo began creating new dishes, which the head chefs liked so much, they offered them as specials. “When I was a dishwasher, I didn’t use my ideas—I’d wash the dishes, come home, sleep, and come back the next day and do the same thing,” Oo recalls. “Now I could use my head.”
Oo’s creativity and persistence paid off. Last summer, Fiala tapped him as the executive chef. At the time, Oo was already doing much of the work. “Thu Rein was the logical guy to put in charge,” says Fiala. “He understands the culture. He takes the foundation of what we’re doing and plays with it and takes it in a new direction.”
Oo’s talent in the kitchen has endeared him to colleagues as well. Though he started with no cooking experience, his eagerness to learn, his passion for food, and his intelligence made him a perfect candidate for a top chef job.
“He’s worked for four different chefs,” Fiala says. “All four of those chefs said over the last eight years, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without Thu Rein.’”
Oo attributes his success to a strong work ethic and inventiveness. “If you want to be a chef, you can’t be lazy,” he says. “You have to push yourself every time.”
