Local Restaurant Group Grows Concepts

Owners of Pêche Modern Coastal and Stäge Kitchen & Bar aim to cover the area with varied cuisine.

The vision, passion and creativity behind Pêche Modern Coastal at The Forum comes from a love of food, good service and, collectively, decades of experience.

Owners Tola Mak, creative director of marketing; Charlie Sunyapong, corporate executive chef; and Raquel Stalcup, director of operations, put their knowledge and acquired skills into varied and interesting food offerings throughout the area. 

Besides the high-end seafood restaurant, they are also the force behind nearby Stäge Kitchen & Bar, another local favorite.

Stäge is focused on tapas and sushi as well as fresh pasta, steaks and seafood. “It’s driven by local and seasonal items, so [the menu] changes to incorporate fresh ingredients,” said Mak. 

Although Pêche emphasizes fish and seafood offerings, they try to have something for everyone. 

“We use lots of classic French techniques in our cooking styles, but with a modern twist,” said Sunyapong. “We’ve also got a raw bar offering, something no one else in the area really had.”

With an eye to freshness and authenticity, there’s no freezer in the Pêche. Fresh ingredients are delivered four times a week.

Even though the restaurant strives to stay true to the vision of the chef, the kitchen is flexible when it comes to dietary restrictions, allergies and just plain preferences. “We have vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free,” said Stalcup. “If it’s not on the menu, the chef will make something special.”

Three paths come together

“I have had a love for food since I was young,” said Sunyapong. 

He was in one of the early classes of the now-shuttered Culinary Institute of America in Tucker. He took a hiatus for about a decade and focused on the beauty industry. But his first love called him back.

He then opened a restaurant in the Parkside district in 2017. Shortly afterward, he teamed up with long-time friends who’d had similar dreams. “We’d been talking about doing this for like 20 years,” he said. “Then once we opened one restaurant together, we just kept going.”

Mak grew up cooking with his parents and grandparents. “They worked in hotels and restaurants. Since I could probably walk, I was in a kitchen, just doing little things,” Mak said. 

His grandparents owned a bakery in Thailand. When his parents immigrated to the U.S., they opened a Thai restaurant in Norcross.

After a childhood around the food industry, Mak also went to culinary school. He took the corporate route and worked in several hotels throughout the metro area.

“I worked for Marriott, Renaissance, the Marquee,” he said. He said that the last thing a corporate executive chef got to do was cook.

“You’re not allowed in the kitchen,” Mak said. “Most hotel chefs are in the office. You’re just managing the staff and the numbers. You’re not really allowed to be that creative, so I opened my own restaurant.”

Stalcup grew up in Hawaii. Her family had some restaurants in hotels, and she grew up working alongside them. The family moved to Atlanta when she was 15 and she started working at local restaurants. That’s when Stalcup met Sunyapong and Mak.

She worked for Buckhead Life Restaurant Group and Here to Serve Restaurant Group for 15 years, bartending and managing the different concepts. “I moved to Johns Creek / Peachtree Corners 20 years ago, managing at Stoney River, and I was the general manager at Cabernet Steakhouse in Alpharetta,” she said.

Although they traveled different paths, the three friends ended up at the same conclusion. “With so much experience in different areas of restaurants and all of us with the cooking background, we realized we can do this ourselves,” said Sunyapong. “So we opened La Belle Vie six years ago.”

They sold that restaurant and have formed their own restaurant group, Saltie Butter, in late 2020. “We have a really good owners’ group where everyone specializes in their area,” said Mak. “So we’ve been able to expand a lot faster.”

Bringing a variety of cuisine to the area

Besides Pêche and Stäge, the group is looking to open two more restaurants — one in Dunwoody, named Campus 244. While it will also concentrate on top-notch cuisine and service, it won’t be like the previous two.

The group is building momentum and putting profits into new development. “I’m out to three times a week looking for locations and meeting with developers,” said Mak. “We’re talking about 10 restaurants in the next five years, so it’s more of a process. We go in and train and develop menus and then we kind of move on to the next project.”

Part of Saltie Butter’s focus has been on mentoring new chefs and restaurateurs to form the next successful generation. The group encourages the staff to grow, learn and bring their cultures and ideas into the mix.

“What we do is really try to grow a lot of the people within our group, and give them a shot,” said Sunyapong. “I think that gives us the opportunity to really expand and not just be a one trick pony.