Red hot Chinese cuisine

Dainty Sichuan is the little restaurant that could. From the humblest of beginnings this pioneer of China's regional Sichuan food in Melbourne grew a cult following - beloved by locals for its exoticism, and by the Chinese community for its authenticity - sprinkled with the fairy dust of big-name chef endorsement, including David Chang and Rene Redzepi.

It's a long way from Smith Street, 2003, where Tina Li first opened with eight tables, no money and a daily tram commute to the markets with a backpack and trolley.

A leap of faith, yes - albeit one that ''seemed better than delivering newspapers'', Li says of her first job in Melbourne after leaving Chongqing in 2000, aged 25, to join new husband Ye Shao. An exhausting two years without a single day's break paid off: the little-known food of her native Sichuan province grabbed attention, with dishes such as Chongqing chilli chicken and ''ants climbing trees'' (pork mince and translucent rice noodles). The heady allure of chilli fire and the minty, curiously mouth-numbing onslaught of the Sichuan peppercorn got people talking.

''Ten years ago there was no real Sichuan food in Melbourne,'' Li says. ''I wanted to do our food but people told us Australians don't like bone, skin and fat. But I told my husband I want to do our food.''

Stubbornness paid off for the former accounting student - a mostly self-taught cook - and her Chinese-medicine-practitioner husband. Despite the ''dark, muscular fear of the unknown'', as Sichuan cooking expert Fuchsia Dunlop has memorably described the Western attitude to ''real'' Chinese food, Dainty Sichuan was a success beyond the wildest imaginings of the early days. The bustling two-level South Yarra restaurant that has served as the Dainty Sichuan mothership since 2009 was joined by a 300-seat city restaurant late last year, and a 220-seat Box Hill hotpot restaurant in June.

In a parallel universe, Li would be a celebrity chef with a book deal and the name-checking status of David Thompson, whose services to Thai food are not dissimilar to her Sichuan crusade. Li and Shao travel back to Chongqing once a year, sometimes twice, to pick up ideas for new dishes and undermine the Western misconception that Chinese food is a static cuisine immune to food trends.

''Sichuan food is becoming very fashionable in China now,'' Shao says, ''It's seen as very exciting because of its big flavours compared with the simplicity of Cantonese. In China now it is necessary to change dishes regularly and make new ones due to so much competition. Fusion is taking off, too - European influences are going into Chinese, and Cantonese food is going to inner parts of China.''

Their new Box Hill restaurant follows another trend in mainland China, with individual hotpots muscling out the communal cauldron that previously bubbled away in the centre of the table. Diners choose two types of broth for their own pot and a cast of things to simmer in it, from strips of eight-score wagyu to whole prawns, exotic fungi to offal. At the central station there's a smorgasbord of condiments and spices to serve yourself, from leek flower to broad-bean paste, XO and sesame oil and half a dozen permutations of chilli.

It's fabulous, best washed down with soy milk, although it's not all incendiary. Bamboo shoots imported from their home town have a wonderful texture; dried mountain carrot rehydrated with chilli oil, sugar, vinegar and salt is nutty and compelling.

It challenges the belief that Sichuan food is solely focused on chilli. ''It's a combination of tastes - there's a lot of variety - some sweet, sour, spicy, salty,'' Shao says. ''It's exciting because in Sichuan they have only ordinary ingredients to use and they need to do a lot of things to put in flavour. You can feel the passion of the cook.''

The subtleties of the cuisine won't be enough to stop the running gags about the Dainty Sichuan name, which is possibly the ultimate restaurant misnomer. ''Putting some toilet paper in the cooler,'' Rene Redzepi tweeted before his visit to South Yarra's Dainty during last year's food festival.

Becoming a place of pilgrimage for the jaded palates of the chef glitterati is arguably the ultimate accolade. Massimo Bottura and Anthony Bourdain, Sean Brock and Magnus Nilsson are among the coterie of globally recognised chefs who have dropped by for the fish-fragrant eggplant and cumin lamb ribs. It's nice, Li and Shao say, although not so thrilling as Chinese tennis superstar Li Na visiting (nor so disappointing as their failure to recognise her).

Fuchsia Dunlop, who hosted a dinner at Dainty Sichuan for the Wheeler Centre earlier this year, also gives it the thumbs up: ''Really authentic Sichuan flavours, and all the dishes you'd hope to see on a Sichuanese restaurant menu. Two of the chefs there went to the same cooking school as me.''

The Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine is regarded as China's leading cooking school, but that brings us to the dark cloud over Dainty Sichuan's horizon. Its rapid expansion has coincided with a government crackdown on working visas, making it harder to sponsor Chinese chefs to come to Australia.

Good chefs have become so hard to come by that Li, now seven months pregnant with their second child, is in the kitchens daily training and overseeing the cooking. She expects to take only one month off after giving birth.

''Immigration policy makes it very hard now to do something in Australia. Standards will go down if we can't bring chefs here,'' Shao says. ''It's our one big problem.''

In this, at least, the two nations are united: ''There's a chef shortage in China. They're valued there as well.''