San Francisco chef Cecilia Chiang, who was a pioneer of Chinese cuisine in the United States, died Wednesday. She was 100. Chiang was the owner, chef and mastermind behind the game-changing San Francisco restaurant, the Mandarin. She is widely credited with bringing real Chinese food to America and was a celebrity chef before celebrity chefs were popularized.
Chiang, who was born near Shanghai, came from an upper-class Chinese family. Although She wasn't shy about acknowledging her good fortune, she faced other difficulties. Convincing the dining public that Chinese food didn't have to be Thursday's cheap take-out option, Chiang had her work cut out for her.
“Most Americans; including American-born Chinese, they didn't know about Chinese food,” Chiang explained in an interview with CNN Travel in 2018. Never having been to China, they needed to be educated on the difference. The year was 1961, and Chiang insisted on snowing diners the delicate side of Chinese food. The restaurant's wine list, filled with Chinese cultural elements, was part of her strategy. Chiang said she wanted to upgrade the Chinese dining experience. To do this, she also needed to be fully aware of aesthetics (美学).
The Mandarin, which would later occupy a much larger space in Ghirardelli Square, wasn't like other Chinese restaurants. “Is this a Chinese restaurant?” Chiang said people asked her all the, time. The Mandarin did not serve chop suey or chow mein, two standard dishes on every Chinese restaurant in the US at the time. But this is exactly what Chiang wanted to avoid. In fact, her early brushes with Chinese food in America had left her unimpressed and determined to show San Francisco what Chinese food was really like.
Not only was Chiang a woman trying to run a restaurant in a male-controlled industry, but She was also attempting to educate diners. Changing people's minds was complicated. And, Chiang, who had been retired some 20 years when she died, at one point remarked that not a single existing restaurant could compare to the Mandarin.
