Black Sheep, as everyone who works there is always keen to make clear, is a bit different from other F&B companies.

“We are a cult,” says hospitality director Jonathan Leung. “But what is a cult? It’s a group of people who all want the same thing.”

There is of course also the whole business of coercive control, gold-plated Rolls-Royces and so on, all of which are fortunately absent in this case, but the point is a valid one: Black Sheep’s employees are enthused with a kind of missionary zeal about what they do.

Take Leung, who joined the company back at the start, ten years ago. Born in Hong Kong and raised partly in Canada, he has since worked on more than 20 openings, and says his role is so varied that he can’t pinpoint what he does. For him, the difference comes down to the fact that Black Sheep lives its values.

“It’s the kind of team that actually executes ideas,” he says. “It’s easier to say than do. It goes from the top to the bottom. I ask myself: what’s the right thing to do? And then I do that. It makes my life so much easier.”

It’s a point that’s backed up by partner, hospitality director and head of culinary Tony Ferreira, who’s from Canada, and another ten-year veteran of the company; in fact, he and Leung worked together at Boqueria, Black Sheep’s first ever restaurant, on the site that became Buenos Aires Polo Club.

“The magic starts with us,” he says. “Ask anyone, and they’re very clear on what their purpose is: taking care of our community, and taking care of our guests. There’s a lot of talk about culture, but I think at Black Sheep, we put our money where our mouth is.”

Ferreira adds that the most important thing he does at the company is leading the Black Sheep Cheeseburgers, the company’s dragon boat team. “What we do at Black Sheep is live and breathe teamwork and culture—nothing represents that better than dragon boat.”

When the team first convened, he says, “No one knew what to do. Some people sat backwards in their chair; some held the paddle upside down.” These days, the team performs at a high level—despite, as he points out, having the inbuilt disadvantage, in a sport where most of the practising happens in the early morning, of working in an industry where no one leaves work before midnight.

For service director Amy Stott, the most important thing about the company is that its values comes from the top, from Hussain and his co-founder Christopher Mark, now Black Sheep’s culinary director.

Adds partner and managing director Marc Hofmann: “It’s crazy the number of people who talk about how Amy has completely changed their experience of Black Sheep. She goes so far beyond to make their experience special, not just of our restaurants but of Hong Kong.”

Originally from France, Hofmann has also worked at the company for eight years, after originally coming to Hong Kong on a gap year and joining the company as an intern. As he was preparing to return to go back to college, he says, “I said to Asim: ‘I really want to study entrepreneurship.’ Asim said: ‘You’re an idiot—if you want to learn entrepreneurship, do it with us.’”

He did just that, and after working extensively in operations, now oversees the entire creative operation: communications, design, digital, guest experience and more.

“The guest experience doesn’t start and stop when you enter and leave the restaurant,” he says. “From the first time you hear about it, the storytelling starts before you come to the restaurant, and hopefully continues a few days after.

“It’s bigger than restaurants. Hong Kong has the most restaurants per capita in the world. People don’t come to Black Sheep for food and drink. What we share is a real passion for people. How do we make people feel? Our values are really important to us. For us, it’s more than delivering restaurant experiences; it’s creating memories.”

“One of the most inspiring things for us and the teams underneath us is they lead from the front,” she says. “They never ask us to do things they haven’t done five times before. For me, it’s that level of care for the people in your charge and being there that matters most.”

When it comes to going to extreme lengths to take care of people, Stott knows what she’s talking about. Originally from the UK, she moved to Hong Kong to work for the Gordon Ramsay restaurant group, but soon moved over to Black Sheep, and has worked there for eight years. She can often be spotted around Soho, going ludicrously above and beyond in her commitment to hospitality by showing people the way to bars and offering restaurant recommendations to tourists. The ultimate people person, she spent some time doing office-based work for the company on its guest experience, something she clearly found roughly akin to a spell in jail (when she was asked to return to operations, she says, her immediate question was “When? Tomorrow?”).

Stott’s full-spectrum commitment to looking after people earns her a lot of love from her colleagues.

“She goes out of her way to talk to strangers who are on Google Maps,” says Ferreira. “‘Are you lost? Let me help you.’ If that’s not hospitality, I don’t know what is.”

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