Food for good taste, big money and success
It only took four years for 29-year-old Noriko Shinohara, a Japanese national（国民）, to establish a restaurant chain with three outlets（分店） under two brands in central Beijing. She and her Irish boyfriend are now decorating a new Japanese Izakaya (restaurant) for launch this April.
"I opened (the two-outlet) Bottega (line) just after I finished my college study in China. There were a lot of voices saying I couldn't do it because I was a very young girl, had no experience, and came from another country," she said.
The first few years were anything but easy（很不容易）. "It's difficult dealing with the regulators（监管人员）, the landlords, customers, and employees. I even cut my hair and changed my makeup style because I wanted other people to take me seriously, for a real businesswoman who wants to achieve something instead of a college girl who was just thinking big（空想）."
The budget to open Bottega came largely from the profit of Shinohara's online store, which she has been running throughout her college days.
Located in Beijing's posh（豪华的） and busy lifestyle zone Sanlitun, Bottega's first restaurant outlet sports a post-modern decor（装饰）, and serves traditional Italian food. Diners（食客） are impressed as much by the authentic cuisine－handmade pizza－as by the delicate designs on walls and furniture.
"My boyfriend and I are foodies and we love Italian cuisine," Shinohara said. "We also love traveling, architecture and arts … those are all the things you can get inspired by when adding elements to the concept of Bottega."
The second outlet of Bottega followed in 2017. Then, the third restaurant, called El Barrio, which serves Mexican cuisine, materialized（开始营业） in November, becoming even more successful with its hot food, to savor（享受） which diners form serpentine（弯弯曲曲的队伍） queues every Saturday night.
The best part of starting their own business, she said, was to retain（保持） faith in what they were doing, regardless of what other people say.
"You got to believe in yourself whether you are a female or a male, old or young, industry veteran or a novice（老兵或新人）, and set mind to the thing you want to accomplish," Shinohara said.
Kitchen consultant from Italy finds home
Italian businessman Bruno Ferrari, 37, never thought he would like doing business so much in China, where he started from scratch（从零开始） and established four successful companies that provide culinary consulting（烹饪咨询）, sell imported food, and help manage private kitchens.
He is set to open a new restaurant in Shanghai soon, and is the brand ambassador（品牌大使） of Italian coffee provider Lavazza in China.
It took the chef-turned-entrepreneur merely four years to get where he is, with supportive Chinese government services and high efficiency he believes is difficult to get in other countries.
"I truly feel welcomed to do business in China," he said.
"China offers good opportunities and support to those who are real talents and ambitious（卓越的） businessmen like me."
In August 2014, after years' work in Michelin-starred（星标） restaurants and five-star hotels across the world, Ferrari arrived in Shanghai to work for Shangri-La hotel's restaurant, where he came to know well about Chinese diners' palate for Western cuisine.
A year later, when he was about to leave for a job offer in Japan, a loyal diner invited him to help create a small coffee shop in Shanghai as a consultant, which was followed by another restaurant consulting project in Nanning, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.
He then decided not to leave, inviting（利用） such opportunities to shape his future in China. "I fell in love with China and decided to build my business and future here."
The reform and opening-up policy has brought significant changes all over the country and people's living standards have risen at an unbelievable speed, which helps his business to thrive, he said.
"My business trips throughout China give me opportunities to discover China in a deep way. I found that China and the Chinese people are very lovely," he said.
Simon Vericel, 38, a Frenchman and founder of Influence Matters, a Beijing-based public relations agency, said the firm will open a new office in Shanghai this year to further expand its business.
Many opportunities come from China's fast technological development, and the great opportunities it has created for foreign companies to cooperate and share knowledge with Chinese companies, to develop new products, services and markets, said Vericel. He decided to study and live in China in 2009 and is now a father of three little children, including an infant.
"The business environment has become a lot friendlier to entrepreneurs and innovation-focused companies in the past five years," he said. "With the explosion（爆炸） of coworking spaces（共同工作空间） available everywhere, anyone with an idea can start working right away, registration（登记） procedures for companies have been simplified and clarified（清晰化）." The general sentiment（情愫） toward entrepreneurs is positive, so it gives confidence to aspiring（有梦想的） entrepreneurs in China, he said.
Influence Matters, established in 2015, is a technology-focused, business-to-business, or B2B, PR agency specializing in（专注于） support for foreign startups and medium-sized companies to achieve their business goals in China with communication strategies.
Its clients are mainly from semiconductor（半导体）, engineering（工程）, manufacturing, gaming, the internet of things（物联网） and artificial intelligence sectors.
According to Vericel, China is often the first or second overseas market that firms seeking to expand target, particularly fast-growing companies from both Europe and the United States. Yet, there are few PR or communication agencies capable（有能力的） or swift（灵活的） enough to develop communication strategies in line with their goal of fast growth. In China, everything goes a lot faster than elsewhere.
Vericel also co-founded the French Tech Beijing hub, an organization supported by the French government to promote the nation's technology, innovation and startups all around the world.
