By Terry Tang
SAN FRANCISCO — Taiwan-born chef George Chen, whose family immigrated to Los Angeles in 1967, vividly remembers how his school lunch of braised pork and Chinese sauerkraut between two pieces of bread was viewed by his classmates.
“‘Oh, God, what are you eating? That’s gross,’” Chen recalled during a recent busy lunch hour at his San Francisco restaurant and bar, China Live, on the edge of the nation’s oldest Chinatown. “And now everybody wants the braised pork and Chinese sauerkraut. Hopefully, perception of Chinese food has now come a long way.”
The immigrant child who once felt the need to hide his food has built a reputation for serving Chinese fine dining in the Bay Area. At China Live, Chen oversees multiple cooking stations — dumpling making, a stone oven roasting Peking ducks, noodle preparation, and a dessert station producing sesame soft serve.
He hopes to revive his upstairs restaurant, Eight Tables, where course-by-course dinners ranged from $88 to $188. Meanwhile, he and his wife Cindy Wong-Chen are preparing to launch a similar concept, Asia Live, in Santa Clara.
The Chens are not alone in elevating Chinese cuisine. Within walking distance are other notable restaurants including Empress by Boon, Mister Jiu’s, and the newer Four Kings.
Across cities such as San Francisco and New York, upscale Chinese American restaurants have emerged in recent years. These restaurants attract attention with refined tasting menus that go far beyond typical takeout staples. Many chefs are experimenting creatively with traditional Chinese dishes, showcasing their cultural heritage through modern culinary approaches.
However, Chinese restaurateurs still face resistance when charging prices comparable to other fine-dining cuisines. Diners rarely question high prices at French haute cuisine restaurants or Japanese omakase counters, yet Chinese restaurants often encounter skepticism.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Chen said about his prices. “Just because we’re in Chinatown? Or just because people’s perception of Chinese food is that it’s only good if it’s cheap? It’s not true.”
Being a Chinese chef who gets to cook Chinese
Since Bolun and Linette Yao opened Yingtao in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen in 2023, they have clearly stated their mission: presenting contemporary Chinese cuisine as an elegant dining experience. Their Michelin-starred restaurant offers a $150 chef’s tasting menu.
“We are trying to break this bias, this boundary of people who only think about Sichuan food, Cantonese food, the takeout box,” said Bolun Yao. He emphasized that he still respects casual Chinese takeout restaurants.
After completing a master’s degree in food studies at New York University, Yao decided he wanted to build a bridge between traditional Chinese cuisine and the fine-dining culture familiar to New York diners.
Emily Yuen, who was a James Beard Award semifinalist last year for her Japanese American restaurant Lingo in Brooklyn, recently joined Yingtao as executive chef. Yuen, a Chinese Canadian whose culinary training focused heavily on French cuisine, says cultural representation in the kitchen and on the plate is deeply meaningful to her.
“I want to go back to who I am and explore that,” Yuen said. She was inspired by Yao’s mission to elevate Chinese culture and cuisine.
She is experimenting with traditional recipes, including the Cantonese egg tart (“dan tat”), reinvented as a savory dish with caviar and quail eggs.
Similarly, Michelin-starred chef Ho Chee Boon transformed the long-dormant Empress of China restaurant in San Francisco into Empress by Boon in 2021. The Malaysian-born chef hopes to establish Cantonese cuisine as a respected fine-dining experience in the United States.
“I try to do something for Cantonese cuisine and for the culture as well — for young people to know about it and for others to understand it,” Boon said.
He previously opened high-end Cantonese restaurants under the Hakkasan brand in cities including Dubai, Mumbai, and locations in the United States.
“We can try to do something better here,” he said, “and let people come back to Chinatown.”
Chinese food’s stigmatized history in the United States
Chinese cuisine and culture have experienced fluctuating levels of acceptance in the West. More than 200 years ago, Europe highly valued Chinese goods such as silk, porcelain, and tea, according to Krishnendu Ray, director of the food studies PhD program at New York University.
However, after China’s defeat in the Opium Wars in the 19th century, Western views of China shifted toward seeing it as a poor nation. When Chinese railroad workers immigrated to the United States, racist stereotypes portrayed Chinese people and their cuisine as strange or unsanitary. These attitudes persisted for generations.
Even today, Asian American restaurants continue to confront outdated stereotypes.
Ray notes that the prestige of “ethnic” cuisine often rises alongside the economic power of its country of origin. In the Michelin Guide for New York City — which lists roughly 300 to 400 restaurants — the share of Chinese regional cuisine mentions increased from 3% to 7% between 2006 and 2024.
Luke Tsai, food editor at the San Francisco Bay Area PBS station KQED, said he welcomes the emergence of high-end Chinese restaurants in Chinatown.
“I think it’s wonderful that these restaurants exist,” Tsai said. “It’s fine if someone doesn’t think the price is worth it, but I’m glad they’re there.”
Don’t call it “fusion”
Many Chinese chefs insist their cuisine should not be described as “fusion.” Instead, they see their approach as Chinese cuisine presented in new contexts rather than Western food with Asian influences.
“Our food is more East to West rather than West to East,” Chen said.
Yuen agrees that labeling such food as fusion can create confusion.
“I think fusion food is in those dimly lit places with trendy cocktails,” she said. “What we’re trying to do is just Chinese.”
Maintaining authentic Chinese cooking techniques is also important. At Empress by Boon, the kitchen maintains four wok stations using woks imported from Hong Kong.
“We want to keep everything the same operation,” Boon said. “We want to keep the traditional, but present it in a modern way.”
Chen similarly takes pride in the open kitchen at China Live, where diners can watch chefs using woks and clay pots representing techniques from different regions of China.
“When you look at the greater culinary disciplines of China and have the space to showcase them,” Chen said, “it really works well.”