Shirley Chung

Would you do Top Chef or something similar again?

Totally, if it was a shorter filming time. It was almost three months of shooting and now with the restaurant running, there’s no way I could leave for that long. But I love the competition. I had so much fun on Top Chef, I would totally do it again. I still have really good relationships with the producers and directors and I was invited back for Top Chef Duels. We’re all friends and if an opportunity comes up I know they’d invite me again.

Wow, three full months?

Yeah, we were on lock down in New Orleans for almost three months. It was fun. They cut off all contact. No cell phone, no laptop, no TV. We listened to radio in the car on the way to the studio and it was such a great treat [laughing]. “Can we play house music? Please please please? And rock music today?” We weren’t able to talk to anybody. They took away our driver’s license so we couldn’t escape, I guess [laughing].

So you could only talk to the other contestants?

Yeah, contestants only. If regular people on the street talked to us our handler had to talk to them for us.

*You* had a handler?

Yes, it was very weird [laughing].

Is “28” still significant?

Definitely. First of all, I’m always 28 and so is everybody that comes to this restaurant [laughing]. But 28 is also the age I started cooking and the number itself in Chinese and Asian culture has a really good meaning.

You *started* cooking at 28? Really? I don’t believe that.

What? After shooting together all morning you don’t trust me now?

Well now I’m not sure!

I should say I collected my first paycheck at age 28, as a cook. Before that I worked in Silicon Valley for a few years but it wasn’t my passion. It was a job. Look at me? Can you imagine me sitting in front of a computer for eight hours a day?

No way.

So after the dot-com boom and the market crashed—I was with a semiconductor startup company and it was going down—I sort of laid myself off and gave myself a severance package and went to culinary school. It was actually my husband who pushed me to pursue my passion and I never looked back.

How good of a cook is your mother?

My mom is a really, really good cook… [smiling large, she breaks into laughter].

Be honest!

Well, she doesn’t know she’s not that great of a cook. Or maybe she knows but doesn’t admit it. It took her a long time to get steamed rice correct. Sometimes too soft, sometimes too much water, or not enough. She couldn’t figure out the consistency. And she likes to boil everything, a lot of one-pot cooking. She doesn’t know the concept of high heat searing or sauté or stir fry. But she has an excuse! She doesn’t have a sense of smell because when she was younger she lost it from a high fever. And when you lose that sense, your taste isn’t that great so when it comes to seasoning she always guesses. But she was an awesome career woman, cooking just wasn’t her talent.

So what made you start cooking?

I always loved food. My way to explore the world is by taste and eating everything. When I was a kid I would just put things in my mouth to see what happens. Growing up my mom was so busy being a doctor, I was brought up with a lot of nannies. They were very young and from a different region of China so they cooked different things that I didn’t really like to eat.

So starting in second grade I started to cook for myself, noodles or fried rice during lunchtime. My mom is an amazing gardener and she had rose gardens and vegetable gardens so at an early age I knew where my food came from and knew I had to make something balanced, so I’d go pick some fresh vegetables for my soup or cut up some ham or use an egg for protein.

Eventually that evolved into cooking for friends and hosting house parties. I thought I was a pretty good home cook but like I said, later it was my husband who pushed me into pursuing this for a career instead of just a hobby.

We’ve seen “cuisine without borders” related to you a few times. What’s that mean to you?

It’s based on my life experience and also my cooking experience. Growing up in Beijing and then going to Northern California for college, I have this melting pot of influences, plus I love to travel. And when it comes to my culinary career, I didn’t plan it out this way, but I started externing at the French Laundry, then went into Bouchon, my first paying culinary job. Then Guy Savoy, very traditional French. From there I moved on to the Mario Batali Group. I was with him for four and half years and opened three restaurants for him, traveling through Italy doing research and development and really falling in love with that culture.

After that was (José Andrés’) China Poblano, and actually the first time I cooked Chinese food professionally. I had to learn things like how to use a commercial grade wok from one of my sous chefs who had 17 years of traditional Chinese cooking experience. But the other side of that restaurant identity is traditional Mexican cuisine. I read and watched a lot of YouTube videos to learn more because, like Chinese cuisine, there’s not a lot of great recipe books. A lot of it is by feel and “grandma’s recipes” in the family.

Being on Top Chef helped me figure out my cuisine and find my voice, to use all those years of work experience and travel and the food I ate growing up. I have to be true to myself. I will always have a Chinese soul in my cuisine but nothing will ever hold me back.

OK, now I want to hear about monkey brains

Where did you get this? Where did I mention monkey brains?

We called your mother. She said when you were little…

You stop it, that was my grandmother.

Your *grandmother* took you to eat that?

I was telling this once and the lady at the next table told us to shut up, because she was getting grossed out. Do you know how many we’re going to offend? [Laughing]

So my grandmother was director of Red Cross of China and she always believed that kids should eat well-rounded, so everywhere she traveled around the world she’d bring back food souvenirs for me like cheese that the typical Chinese family wouldn’t be exposed to. She would also take me to national banquets and cool events. One was in Sichuan province where they used to have a delicacy cuisine of hot oil monkey brain. So, I had that at a very young age, almost five. It’s a very bloody and… I don’t want to talk about it because it’s really scary! A lot of people don’t understand how anybody could eat like that. I don’t remember much, I kind of remember the texture was like tofu.

I remember seeing a video a long time ago about a restaurant that had a live monkey in a table and they do it all right there.

At least they get the monkey drunk first, so that’s kind of nice.

Did she say what it was?

Yes but she did cover my eyes and ears kind of like this [covering her head with her arms and hands]. That was the finale of the national banquet [laughing].

How was it growing up in Beijing?

I loved it. I had a really great childhood growing up, literally next to the Forbidden City in the middle of Beijing. I went to the same school from elementary all the way to high school, so I’ve known my Beijing friends since I was six years old. My parents were loving and we had a very good life, and because my grandmother was director of the Red Cross we had a driver and those sorts of things. It was a slightly privileged childhood.

My parents took me traveling all across China very young so I was exposed to a lot of different things, but the Beijing people love food and socializing and making friends. We talk about politics a lot because it’s the capitol and we’re very involved and passionate about everything. Beijing people are known as having big hearts.

What kind of kid things did you do?

I was extremely active. My mom sent me to study piano at age three, but I got into a fight with my teacher’s daughter and kicked out of class and was never able to go back. Later I found out she was the number one pianist in the country and my mom asked favors to get me into that class… and I got kicked out [laughing]! I was like a little puppy that you had to whack to tire them out in order to behave.

I was a crazy child. I’d jump off the roof in front of my mom because I thought it was cool, and I loved fire. Cooking makes sense now because I was never afraid of it. I almost burned my house down because I was locked out in the winter. I remembered thinking of a fireplace, something romantic from a movie or something, so I started one.

Growing up in Beijing was very fun. We were outdoors all the time, running around. Back then it was really safe and there was always lots of us walking to school together and coming back to play. I was a single child and hated being at home by myself so I’d constantly sneak out and try to hang out with my friends.

How important is service in a new restaurant?

Extremely important. It’s hard for new restaurants to get into their groove, to get the steps down because every restaurant is unique. And you have to get the group excited. I find OC quite different from what I’m used to. In Las Vegas you have a lot of so-called “lifers” because hospitality is their career, they’ve been doing it for 20 years. But when it comes to OC you have a lot of students and part-timers so we have to be more patient when it comes to training and things. Constantly training in service is important.

People ask what percentage of a good restaurant is good food versus service and I think minimum 50/50. If you have a great product but a bad salesman that can’t explain well or misdirects people to ordering something away from their palate, you lose. Coming to a restaurant isn’t just about the food but giving a great overall experience.