Alan Yau has parlayed an immigrant childhood straddling Chinese and British cultures into a gastronomical empire that's reinvented pan-Asian food for Western palates.

Yau, 45, who was born in Hong Kong and moved to Britain as a teenager, is best known for creating the wildly popular, London-based Wagamama chain of Japanese noodle restaurants, which now boasts 80 branches in 13 countries. He sold the chain in 1997, and since then, he's opened the London Thai chain Busaba Eathai, as well as the city's first Michelin-starred Chinese restaurants Hakkasan and Yauatcha, all of which have been huge successes. (Prime-time reservations at Yauatcha typically require a wait of at least six weeks.)

Barely off the November opening of Sake No Hana, a haute cuisine Japanese restaurant, Yau made headlines once again in January, when he sold the majority stake in Hakkasan and Yauatcha (and the brands' expansion potential) to Tasameem Group, the property division of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, for $60 million, with Yau staying on as C.E.O. The money will go toward an eventual $100 million expansion of those restaurants into other countries, beginning in February with the opening of a Hakkasan in Istanbul, a frequent stomping ground for Yau and his Turkish-born wife. This March brings the anticipated London debut of Cha Cha Moon, a successor to Wagamama that will offer affordable Szechuan food.

Because of his ability to create new takes on traditional Asian cuisine and novel dining experiences, Yau has been called London's most influential restaurateur. In 2006, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire—the level just below knighthood—for his accomplishments.

Keeping up with Yau takes an act of god. He travels about seven months of the year to 20 countries, and new ideas are consistently percolating in his mind, which he attributes to a combination of natural creativity and mental conditioning. His future plans include expanding Busaba Eathai into other countries and taking another stab at New York. His first attempt to crack the New York dining scene was foiled when a deal to open Park Chinois at Ian Schrager's Gramercy Park Hotel in 2006 fell through after Yau wasn't able to get work visas for the particular chefs he wanted.

Yau is hoping to open another restaurant in New York sometime next year, saying that he learned from his Park Chinois experience that the New York restaurant market has its own unique challenges. "There's a lot more expectation to perform at a higher level right away than in other territories," Yau says.

After the disappointment of Park Chinois, Yau learned that he has a knack for translating stumbles into lessons.

"I view mistakes not as failures but as a consequence of the learning experience," he says. "The main thing I've learned is to be patient and also to have a better awareness of financial planning. In my early years, I didn't put as much importance in it as I do now. You kind of learn as you make mistakes. But the next time around, you make things better."

He adds, "For example, when I brought in a venture capitalist for Wagamama in 1996, my lack of attention to details on the financial side cost me dearly in terms of the working relationship." The venture capitalist "was more corporate, and I was more entrepreneurial. At the infancy level, that's bound to clash."

Today, Yau's empire is structured more like a corporation than a small business, with his restaurants akin to subsidiaries under an umbrella company, all sharing bulk-purchased supplies and in-house marketing, public relations, and accounting departments.

For aspiring entrepreneurs, Yau sees two possible routes to success: They can gain maturity as they rise in the corporate world before striking out on their own, or they can start from scratch and learn by trial and error.

His own peripatetic nature made him a candidate for plan B. He notes that a modest background like his can sometimes make the entrepreneurial path easier, because you have less to lose, while too much education can sometimes be a detriment.

"Post-graduate programs like M.B.A.'s place too much emphasis on analysis, which can overprocess ideas and intuition," he says. "Entrepreneurialism is more of a creative process."

Yau was born in Hong Kong and at 12 moved to King's Lynn, England, a town 90 minutes northeast of London. There, his family ran a Chinese restaurant and, as the town's lone Asians, weathered a significant amount of racism. That setting fostered in him a determination to do better.

He studied politics and philosophy at the former City of London Polytechnic but left without submitting his final dissertation. After that, he dabbled in everything from engineering to interior design before rejoining his father's business.

He used the money he made from his father's restaurant to fund his research into the fast-food business, preparing for what would become Wagamama in 1992. He spent four months at a Hong Kong McDonald's learning about franchising and conducted a feasibility study with a Kentucky Fried Chicken executive to figure out how to create a simple but tasty and healthy product. It wasn't until a friend suggested Japanese ramen-noodle soups that Yau found his niche.

"People should do something they enjoy rather than focus on what market trends demand or what's hot or will make the most money," Yau says. "If you have the interest, passion, and capability, success should come automatically. Creating authenticity through the product rather than using any external marketing is much more powerful."

Just as Yau has learned to be patient with himself and his learning curve, he also gives some slack to the universe. "Another thing I learned is slightly quirky and spiritual," he says. "In life, no matter how ambitious, eager, or aggressive you are, when the timing is not right, then it's not yours at that stage. Things have to fall into place."