Niki Cheng and Shaokao Cheng at their Chelsea BoConcept store. (PMc)

The first time The Observer met Niki and Shaokao Cheng, it was July, during the opening night of Julio Gaggia’s art show. Mr. Gaggia, the boyfriend of the plastic surgeon Mark Warfel, was preparing his work “Living Art: Chelsea Boy Apartment,” during which he would live for five days as a window display model at the BoConcept furniture store on West 18th Street. He spent the week eating, sleeping, working—and performing other, less-mentionable activities—in a showroom that divided him from gawkers outside with a pane of glass.

While we lounged about on the display furniture, socialite photographer Patrick McMullan brought over a petite woman with short, pixie-cropped hair.

“Niki is one of the few Power Asians in New York society,” he loudly whispered, flourishing Ms. Cheng before us. She smiled shyly and posed for a photograph before excusing herself.

It would be two weeks before we realized that Ms. Cheng and her husband owned the store where we had dropped more than one canapé between the cushions of a $3,000 couch.

In fact, the couple owns all five locations of the Danish furniture store in New York City, and another two in New Jersey. But the stores themselves aren’t the reason Mr. McMullan calls the Chengs “Power Asians.” Rather, it’s the couple’s seemingly innate social instincts, their ability to leverage a fairly cookie-cutter, mid-market design base into a celebrity-filled social whirl. One might say “Only in America,” or (even worse) “Only in New York,” but this wouldn’t exactly cover it. There is a certain type that thrives in Manhattan no matter what they’re selling, no matter where they’re from, no matter how few resources they have upon arriving.

If Darwin were alive today and researching the survival of New York species, he would do well to study the Chengs. They’re not social climbers, per se, but social movers—Gladwellian “connectors” who know everyone from celebrities to the guys with the best drapes in the city. They share their knowledge strategically with other key additions to their ever-expanding Rolodex. For Niki Cheng, 39, and Shaokao Cheng, 41, life is not about climbing a ladder. It’s about traversing the monkey bars that crisscross Manhattan.

“Niki and Shaokao have a wonderfully progressive view of New York society,” said Village Voice scribe Michael Musto. “They mix into their social circle drag performers, club holdouts, top celebrities and the corporate crowd. It’s all-inclusive.”

Last Friday, we met Ms. Cheng for a second time—again at the Chelsea store. While we were there, actress Faye Dunaway came in and had what one could only call a fit of method acting for a sequel to Mommie Dearest. The recently evicted Academy Award winner had come in two weeks ago and bought a piece of art from the store, and now she wanted Ms. Cheng’s help on a new design project.

“I adore this store. I’ve raved about it; they really need to get some of this stuff to London,” Ms. Dunaway told The Observer. “They don’t have anything like it there now.”

Unable to find a confidentiality agreement for us to sign, she stormed out shortly thereafter. (We didn’t get to tell her that there are actually 13 BoConcept stores in the U.K.) It was the kind of scene that no one wants a reporter to witness while writing a profile, but if there was any bad blood, Ms. Cheng didn’t show it.

“Really, don’t be upset,” she told The Observer, rubbing our arm soothingly. “She’ll call back. Anyway, where were we?”

The Chengs are adept at pleasing their celebrity clients, a skill that has come in handy while designing P. Diddy’s home, Jay-Z’s office (bed included), Mary J. Blige’s entire apartment and Estelle’s closet. Susan Sarandon, Lil’ Kim and Patti LaBelle have also used the duo’s interior design services, and Ms. LaBelle sang at the BoConcept flagship store for a Lance Armstrong benefit. They count designers Vivienne Tam, Asher Levine and Zang Toi among their closest friends.

Not that everyone in their circle is a brand name. After Ms. Dunaway left, we rushed over to Astor Place, where BoConcept was sponsoring a tent for a Christmas tree stand run by a Brit named Marco Romero, his girlfriend and his brother. Though he runs a jewelry shop in Greece most of the year, Mr. Romero spends three weeks in December living out of a van selling holiday firs, and Ms. Cheng took it upon herself to decorate the tent that the trio takes shifts in.

Despite a franchise that traffics mainly in large-scale items, Ms. Cheng has a burgeoning obsession with “micro-units”—apartments that are between 250 and 300 square feet.

She wanted to prove that it was possible to use BoConcept furniture to decorate a very small space, and the Romeros provided her with an interesting challenge. Their tent was about seven feet long and seven wide, and the guys had to hunch over even when standing at its tallest point. Empty, the space seemed minuscule. But after Ms. Cheng put down an orange rug, a short shelving unit, an ottoman, a table and two chairs (as well as several well-placed decorative objects), the tent looked like a living room on the Lower East Side.

It’s never quite clear why Ms. Cheng decided to treat Romero and his tent like VIPs, but when it was revealed that a $3,000 lamp from the store broke on the ride over, Ms. Cheng gasped, then turned to Mr. Romero. “We’ll have to get you another one.”

Shaokao Cheng, Cienna Cheng and Niki Cheng. (Patrick McMullan)

Perhaps the random act of kindness was a viral marketing ploy, or stemmed from her own back story of struggle. (Probably a bit of both, if we’re being honest.) Niki Cheng—née Chong—was 25 when she moved to New York in the mid-’90s. She had an architecture degree from the University of Malaysia and a visa that was only good for one year. She was scraping by as a coat-check girl at Von when she met Mr. Cheng, a young banker whose father had given him a $90,000 loan to buy a single-bedroom apartment on Madison and 32nd.

The two were introduced by a restaurant co-worker of hers, and she began relocating her belongings to his apartment after the first date, she said. After a heady three months of dating, Mr. Cheng invited her to move into his place permanently. “He didn’t realize I already had,” she laughed.

But there was a catch: his apartment in Murray Hill would be undergoing extensive renovations for two years. They made a pact: if they could live through the 24 months without breaking up, they would become a pair in the business sense as well. Mr. Cheng also pushed his girlfriend to get a job at a furniture retail outlet that would give her a three-year visa.

One day while working there, Ms. Cheng came upon a catalog that featured a coffee table identical to the type she sold. Except that Ms. Cheng’s outlet was selling her model for $2,000, and this unheard of Danish brand was selling its at $299.

The brand was called BoConcept, and its international franchise operation was just getting off the ground. The Chengs approached the company with the idea of opening a New York store on Madison Avenue, but were turned down. BoConcept’s owners thought that space in the city was too expensive and there wouldn’t be enough room to show the big items. In their view, New Yorkers were not the target market for their oversized aesthetic.

But the duo were undeterred. “We had spent a year putting together research that proved that this store could be opened in New York,” Ms. Cheng said. They also showed their plans to a friend they met at Bungalow 8.

Their friend turned out to be designer Max Azria, who spent 10 minutes calculating the figures the couple had acquired during their research, sketched a number down on his pad, and told them to go for it.

In 2003, BoConcept agreed to let the couple try their hand at a New York flagship for $300,000. “We had everything to lose,” Ms. Cheng said. “They had nothing to lose.” Niki was 28 and Shaokao 30. They had recently gotten married in Hawaii after three years of dating because, as Mr. Cheng put it, “My wife went to three different psychics who told her that marriage would bring us good fortune.” Mr. Cheng and his father remortgaged their houses to pay for the initial investment.

They barely survived the first two years; they couldn’t figure out the computer systems, and there were issues with shipping. Their business model might not have actually worked had Mr. and Ms. Cheng not been so socially ambitious.

With his degree in engineering and hers in architecture, they were able to use their conjoined home-decorating skills for seemingly un-BoConcept-related purposes. When one big-name celebrity client called, nothing from BoConcept would fit in their closet, so Ms. Cheng happily suggested shelves and fixtures that did. Soon, the singer was calling the couple to redesign her living room, and this time they used items from their Dutch catalog.

The fact that BoConcept’s furniture design is somewhere between IKEA and West Elm is somewhat beside the point. What the Chengs have done was take a relatively bland furniture store from a not especially popular Danish franchise and parlay it into a personal calling card.

When the two aren’t peddling 12-piece sectionals, they can often be found at yoga or otherwise getting fit. At 12:54 a.m. Saturday morning, The Observer received a text from Niki, who asked if we wanted to attend a 10 a.m. Bikram session with her. (We pleaded out.)

Later that morning, Ms. Cheng was at the Madison store, dressed from head to toe in brown Juicy velour. She helped hunk real estate agent Ryan Serhant from Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing find items for his move from Pine Street to Chelsea ... which of course will be documented on Bravo’s website. After he left, Ms. Cheng rushed out herself for a private second yoga session of the day, but not before inviting The Observer over for a home-cooked meal the next night with “some friends” that included Ms. Tam and Mr. Musto.
http://youtu.be/JjI2SwrGnHs
A 2010 BoConcept commerical featuring Mr. Musto and Ms. Cheng.

In 2006, the Chengs moved with their baby daughter Cienna from Murray Hill to a $1.7 million, 2,200-square-foot artist’s loft with 12-foot-high ceilings on Fifth Avenue at 29th Street. This is the space, apparently, where you can keep two six-foot ottomans without it feeling cluttered.

Cienna is now 6, their son Eden 3; when we arrived Sunday evening, their mom was running around the gigantic apartment, scooping them up for bed. Ms. Cheng looked ready to fall asleep herself, after making a feast: home-cooked dishes with pork belly, chicken, eggplant and fish, and a lotus soup for dessert. Ms. Tam was there, and Mr. Musto showed up for dessert. Mr. Levine wasn’t able to make it, but the table was more than full.

Mr. Cheng explained that she had rescheduled her meeting with Ms. Dunaway, but was too busy cooking to make it down to the store. So she had the actress come up to her apartment and multitasked.
As we were leaving, Mr. Cheng asked sincerely if we would come back and have dinner when we weren’t on the job. Ms. Cheng had already invited us to their Christmas party and a luxury garage sale they were co-sponsoring this week. They were so nice! How could we decline when they were so generous?

Another rung added to the monkey bars.

Jack Liu, Sandy Leung, Vivienne Tam and Annie Yau. (PMc)

Vivienne Tam was clear about one thing at the launch of her jewelry collaboration with TSL at Hakkasan New York on Wednesday, which brought out the likes of model Jessica Hart and Julie Macklowe: individuality is key. This goes beyond style to the Five Elements of Chinese cosmology, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. The belief is that each person relates to a different element; for example Ms. Tam described herself as “Water, needing a bit of Fire.” Naturally, she wore red.

This explained the omnipresence of shapes incorporated into her designs at the Vivienne Tam show earlier  in the evening. The Observer learned that Earth, for example, is represented by a square. Okay, we’ve got it, so where does the jewelry come in?

“It’s about incorporating the colors of the jewelry with the clothes … the colors must work together in harmony … figuring out which dress is with which element,” Ms. Tam explained.

She was joined by Annie Yau, CEO of TSL, which, The Observer was informed, is the “Tiffany’s of China,” and one of the largest jewelers in the country.

Ms. Tam described her as the “perfect partner.”

Ms. Yau explained that her job involved “taking Vivienne’s concept and trying to make it work” as the pair recalled the chaos of the past few months, the short time in which they had to pull the collaboration off.

The result is a very personal collection, using wood, jade, gold, garnet and agate “to embolden the spirit and enhance energy.” (And it also looks rather damn good!)

Ms. Tam said she also wanted to move away from the harshly architectural designs we've been seeing a lot of on runways in the last few years.  "I wanted to inspire women hand-making clothes, using their hands, because so much is going on with the computer," she said. "Sometimes you've lost the sensibility to the world, to nature, about people, about beautiful architectures and beautiful geometries, everything, the patterns, the fabrics, everything."

And who does Ms. Tam consider to be the quintessential Vivienne Tam woman? "Every woman! The world's woman is a Vivienne Tam woman!"

Ms. Wilkinson wore cuffed trousers and a dark blazer.

At Jean-Georges Vongerichten's 66

I first came to 66, Jean-Georges Vongerichten's new Chinese restaurant in Tribeca, for Sunday dim sum. The restaurant, designed by Richard Meier, wasn't busy at all, unlike Sunday in Chinatown, where waiting an hour in a crowded lobby for your number to be called isn't unusual. My son and I got the best seats in the house, opposite four tropical fish tanks. They supply the only splashes of color in the serene, off-white dining room, and are as mesmerizing to watch as the aquariums at Sea World. A black-and-white spotted eel, its mouth hanging open, gaped as a pilot fish landed on top of the brown nurse shark that was resting on the sand, and stayed there.

"The pilot fish is cleaning bacteria off the shark," explained our waiter, decked out in the ultra-stylish staff uniform, a gray Mao jacket, black pants by Vivienne Tam and gray sneakers. "When he gets off, you'll see he has a mark on his back like the sole of a sneaker."

Mr. Vongerichten's 66 is the 13th restaurant in his far-flung empire, and his sixth in New York. He's a brilliant chef with an astonishing range, from the haute cuisine at Jean Georges and the innovative French-Thai food at Vong, to the Alsatian pizza flambé at the hip Mercer Kitchen in Soho. The look of his new place is much like the waiter's uniform's: cool and minimalist. Located on the ground floor of the Textile Building, a commercial textile exchange constructed in 1901, the restaurant has been cleverly divided into dining areas separated by frosted glass panels and stainless-steel wire mesh, and bathed in a soft, luminous glow from inset lightboxes. The lounge is furnished with tables made by Saarinen; the dining rooms boast Eames chairs and tables that look like white jade but are, in fact, made of resin. For those who can't get a reservation for dinner, a 40-foot-long communal table under a line of red silk banners depicting Chinese ideograms comfortably seats up to 40 diners without the need for advanced booking. The bartenders work behind a frosted glass wall that casts intriguing shadows of them, preparing such cocktails as the Shanghai cosmo (vodka, plum sake and cranberry juice) or a Fragrant Cloud (gin and tonic with elderflower syrup and candied ginger).

The menu at 66, overseen by chef de cuisine Josh Eden, is unusual and varied, ready to satisfy every whim, with choices of small or large plates, soups, noodles, vegetables, rice dishes and main courses. But overall, the food is hit-and-miss. Some dishes, such as a tuna tartare with Chinese celery, crispy lotus root and glistening brown beads of soy tapioca, are unforgettable, definite hits. The scallion pancakes are also wonderful-crisp, floury and light, like chapatis. You could eat plates of them. Prawns with lily bulb and sweet walnuts is a revelation of sweet and salty, spicy and crunchy, served with slivers of dried red chili and pieces of onion.

But the Peking duck, which comes with thin, delicate pancakes and shrimp crackers, was no better than I've had in Chinatown, nor was the shrimp toast with water chestnut or the fried frogs' legs. The black bass was perfectly cooked under a light green-tea tempura batter, but came with a cloying sweet-and-sour sauce. The braised beef chow fun, cut in thick, tender squares and seasoned with lemon peel, was disappointingly bland.

For the most part, the dim sum dishes were ordinary but good. They included a pleasant, non-greasy egg roll with Chinese apricot mustard, shrimp wontons and traditional steamed barbecue pork buns. But the chef stretched things a bit far when he added foie gras to the shrimp wonton, which were saved by a sprightly grapefruit dipping sauce. Leathery dumplings filled with chicken "liquid" were awful. And the lobster wonton soup with celery and chive blossom was dull, not worth the $9. Lobster hargow-wontons topped with different-colored jewels of flying fish roe-wasn't as good as the plain shrimp dumplings.

While we were eating, two middle-aged couples sat down at the table next to us. "I don't want to look at the fish, especially the skinny one," said one of the women, briskly changing places so she had her back to the aquarium. "I was at El Teddy's up the street once, and a fish jumped out of the tank and flopped on the floor right next to me!"

We all stared at the tank where the pilot fish was gently moving up and down on top of the nurse shark. There was an embarrassed silence, like those times when parents watching "suitable" nature movies with small children are unexpectedly treated to a herd of elephants copulating. Then the fish stopped moving altogether. "Do you think they're dead?" asked the other woman finally.

"Fish float to the top when they're dead," responded the fishophobe. She'd ordered a plate of sesame noodles that she proceeded to cut up with her knife and fork. The dish was nothing like your local takeout. It consisted of cellophane noodles served in a small bowl, topped with slivers of cucumber, apples, scallions and bean sprouts that added a surprising twist.

"I like this so much better than going to Chinatown and sitting with people you don't know, eating duck feet wrapped in sausage," said the fishophobe.

My son went red in the face with fury.

"I try one or two new things a year," she went on. "Two years ago, I tried shrimp; it didn't work for me." Too bad, because the fried shrimp wontons certainly worked for us.

And whatever the flaws in the main courses, the desserts brought the meal to an end with flying colors. I've never had them like this in Chinatown. According to my son, the almond tofu, which comes with orange cannoli, is just as good as the almond-cookie ice cream at the Ice Cream Factory on Bayard Street. The tapioca and coconut parfait, served in a pilsner glass with a bright yellow straw half an inch wide, is great: You suck up the fruits chopped inside like a vacuum cleaner, and it comes with an exquisite coconut crisp. The Ovaltine and milk-chocolate pudding with banana rice crisp and coffee froth is a wonderful excess. The yuzu roll with raspberry sorbet is also extraordinary, permeated with a subtle, tart citrus flavor. Chocolate and green-tea fortune cookies add a high note at the end.

After we finished lunch, the pilot fish swam away from the nurse shark and turned himself right side up. True to the waiter's description, the top of his back looked as though the black rubber sole of a sneaker was stuck to it.

A hundred dollars is a lot for a dim sum lunch for two people, even when that bill includes dessert and tea. In Chinatown, where the fish in the tanks end up on the customer's plate, we normally spend around $20, and the tea is free. But when the brilliant chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten is the brains behind the stove, you expect to pay more for your food. But you also expect it to be nothing less than great. I'm sure, in time, it will be.