Cecilia Chiang
Founder of Mandarin Restaurant

Cecilia Sun Yun Chiang (born ca. 1920) is a Chinese-American restaurateur and chef, best known for founding and managing the Mandarin Restaurant in San Francisco, California. Chiang is often credited with introducing San Francisco, and the United States, to a more authentic version of Mandarin cuisine. Chiang's son, Philip, is a co-founder of the restaurant chain P.F. Chang's. Alice Waters, the owner of Chez Panisse, the world-renowned restaurant in Berkeley, California said that what Chiang did to popularize Chinese cuisine in America is what Julia Child (who Chiang also taught) did for French Cuisine.

Martin Yan
Master Chef, Host of Yan Can Cook, Founder of Yan Can Restaurant

The celebrated host of over 3,000 cooking shows, broadcast worldwide, Martin Yan enjoys distinction as a certified Master Chef, a highly respected food consultant, a cooking instructor and a prolific author. His diverse talents have found expression in 30 cookbooks, including the award winning Martin Yan’s Feast, Martin Yan’s Asian Favorites, Chinese Cooking for Dummies, Martin Yan’s Chinatown Cooking (intro by Julia Child), Martin Yan’s Quick & Easy, and his latest, Martin Yan’s China. In 1978, he pioneered a daily TV Chinese cooking show: the now classic “Yan Can Cook.”

Theresa Lin
Famous Host of Broadcasting & TV, Author

Complimented as “The Julia child of Taiwan” by Director Ang Lee of Eat Drink Man Woman, Theresa Lin is broadly popular throughout the worldwide Chinese community as the author of 16 seminal cookbooks in Chinese, which are distributed generally throughout Asia and in Chinese-language bookstores around the world. She has been retained as a food consultant for dozens of gourmet Chinese restaurants and food companies around the world. She hosts talk shows “Eat Drink Man Woman” (weekly) and “What’s Cooking” (daily) at KAZN AM 1300 radio station for 10 years in Los Angeles. In addition, she also hosts a cooking demonstration program on Power TV Cable Channel, Local TV Channel 18, and HK Jade Channel (TVB).

Tony Wu
Chinese Master of Food Carving

Tony Wu, a Chinese culinary master, specializes in imperial cuisine. Tony is the master of Chinese food carving and three gold medal winner on the fifth World Chinese Cooking Contest. He is particularly proficient on four unique skills revered in Chinese culinary culture: stretching 16,000 pieces of noodles blindfoldedly within 90 seconds, knife-cutting noodles blindfoldedly overhead, carving roses on fruit blindfoldedly, and pulling fibers out of melted-sugar, even up to 10 feet long.

Hwang June Jan
Master Chef

Master chef Hwang June Jan was the state banquet chef for Chiang Ching-kuo and Yen Chia-kan. He was also the host of the CCTV cooking show “Snack World”. He has done his part to promote Sino-American relations by delighting the palates of foreign envoys at countless diplomatic events. In the past 10 years, he’s competed in a number of European cooking competitions—winning gold medals in many of them. He was also the first Chinese chef to win a gold medal at an International Cooking competition held in the US. Hwang has also been honored by the New York City council with the “Outstanding Citizen” award several times.

Jimmy Zhang
Founder of Art Chef Inc.

Jimmy Zhang, founder of Art Chef Inc. graduated from the Culinary Arts Institute in China in 1989 as chef with a personal interest in the ancient fruit and vegetable carving art. Chef Jimmy often teaches people in his community the basic techniques of fruit and veggie carving. Chef Jimmy is committed to promoting this highly regarded culinary art through his own work and through the many excellent students of his, who share the same passion with him on this exquisite craft.

Michael M. Wei
Owner of Yangming

In 1977, Michael M. Wei opened Ming Garden in Elkins Park and later Szechuan East in the Northeast. In 1991, Michael transformed an old restaurant icon into a fine dining destination. Michael created the East-West cuisine and redesigned everything, with Yangming’s birth rewarded with applause. Michael has been honored with many prestigious awards including: “The Keystone Award”—The Pennsylvania Restauant Association, “America’s Top Tables”—Gourmet Magazine, and “Ten Great Chinese Restaurants”—USA Today.

Tony Hu
Chef, Restaurateur and President of Tony Gourmet Group

Tony Hu is a splendid Chinese chef and an elite restaurateur, who is famous for persistently promoting Chinese cuisine and culture, and whose merits are often reported by televisions and newspapers. In 1993, he founded Tony Gourmet Group, a chain of five Chinese restaurants located in Chicago and Connecticut, with Sichuan, Beijing and Shanghai three types of Chinese cuisine being served. In 2002, he was awarded "Asian Pacific American Outstanding Leadership Award" in Chicago.

Michael Tong
Owner and Executive Chef of Shun Lee West And Shun Lee Palace

Michael Tong is the owner and executive chef of the popular Shun Lee West and Shun Lee Palace in New York City. In forty years, the Shun Lee restaurants have served about ten million people and have won two four-star ratings from the New York Times. Tong has appeared and cooked on the “Late Show with David Letterman”, and his restaurants have been reviewed in the New York Times, Time Out, Zagat Survey, New York Magazine, and the Michelin Guide to New York City. For introducing Chinese culture to America, he has been honored by the China Institute in America, and was awarded the 2006 Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

Lawrence C. C. Chu
Executive Chef and Owner of Chef Chu’s Restaurant & Co-Founder of Asian Chefs Association

In 1970, Lawrence Chu opened the award-winning Chef Chu’s Restaurant in Los Altos, California, which is one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s best-loved Chinese restaurants. A renowned cookbook author, lecturer, and media personality, Lawrence Chu is the author of the cookbook, Chef Chu’s Distinctive Cuisine of China (Harper & Row, 1983). Chef Chu continues to give back to the community through support of numerous local charities and as one of the Founders of the Asian Chef Association.

Willy Ng & Ronny Ng
Founders of Koi Palace

Willy Ng and Ronny Ng are brothers, who have jointly been running Koi Palace more than years. Koi Palace mainly provides Hong Kong-style dim sum and seafood delicacies, which are popularized and highly praised in the local Chinese community. Willy once learned Chinese gastronomy from various professional chefs and has traveled to many countries to study different culinary arts. Koi Palace has been rated, for many times, as the Bay Area's most outstanding restaurant by the media, and has consecutively won the Top 100 Overall Excellence Award granted by the Annual Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in USA Competition.

Jacqueline M. Newman
Editor-in-chief of Flavor and Fortune

Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman is editor-in-chief of Flavor and Fortune, the only English-language magazine in the United States dedicated to the science and art of Chinese cuisine. She is Professor Emeritus at Queens College-CUNY. As author of eleven books and monographs, she wrote six chapters in others, was guest editor for several journals, and she writes many articles for Asian Restaurant News. Recently she received the ‘Amelia Award’ for her lifetime of dedication to culinary history, most of it Chinese food history. She has served on the boards of many national and international food organizations including the James Beard House awards.

He Tao
Chairman of Chengdu City of Gastronomy Investment Co., Ltd.

He Tao is a senior economist, distinguished entrepreneur, and influential social activist. He is a pioneer in the Chinese restaurant and entertainment industry and is currently the chairman of Chengdu City of Gastronomy Investment Co., Ltd. and the advertising company Shanda; a committee member on the ninth CPPCC National committee and 10th Szechuan Province Committee; president of the Szechuan Hospitality & Entertainment Industry Association and Chengdu City of Gastronomy Association; and a member of the Szechuan Federation of Industry (Provincial Chamber of Commerce) executive committee.

Chef Khai Duong
Executive Chef of Ana Mandara & Co-Founder of Asian Chefs Association

Khai Duong, Executive Chef at Ana Mandara in San Francisco, is considered one of the world’s leading Asian chefs, and one of the pioneers of modern Vietnamese cuisine. He has been featured in Gourmet Magazine, Bon Appetit, InStyle Magazine, USA Today, The San Francisco Chronicle, Chef Magazine and many others. Duong is the founder of Chefs Without Borders and the Asian Chefs Association and the recipient of 2007 California Culinary Academy Educational Foundation’s Chef Star of Fame, presented by Martin Yan.

Kong Yu
President of SBS Inc. & Publisher of Chinese Restaurant News