Chefs | New Asian Cuisine

Rainer Becker

Posted on 01. Sun, 2010 by admin in Chefs

Zuma 5 Raphael Street London SW7 1DL 020 7584 1010 www.zumarestaurant.com info@zumarestaurant.com Zuma The Landmark Level 5 & 6 15 Queen’s Road Central Hong Kong (852) 3657 6388 info@zumarestaurant.com.hk Zuma Salhane SK No: 7 Ortaköy Istanbul Turkey +90 212 236 22 96 info@zumarestaurant.com.tr Zuma Gate Village 06, DIFC P.O. Box 506620 Dubai United Arab Emirates +971 4 425 5660 reservations@zumarestaurant.ae Zuma 270 Biscayne Boulevard Way Miami FL 33131 USA (305) 577-0277 miami@zumarestaurant.com After opening a second site in Hong Kong in 2007, the global expansion of Rainer Becker’s Zuma restaurant has continued into 2008, with new restaurants in Dubai and Istanbul. The hyper-trendy Zuma was a truly cosmopolitan affair when it opened in 2002: a German chef with an Indian [...]

Yukari Sakamoto

Posted on 01. Sat, 2010 by grace in Chefs

Photo credit – The Little Bookroom Yukari Sakamoto Trained as a chef and baker at the French Culinary Institute and as a sommelier at the American Sommelier Association, Yukari Sakamoto has worked as a sommelier at the prestigious New York Bar and Grill in the Park Hyatt Tokyo and the Takashimaya department store. She has taught classes on food, wine, and shochu, the popular Japanese distilled spirit, and she was the first non-Japanese to pass the rigorous exam to become a “shochu advisor,” essentially a sommelier for shochu. She has conducted culinary tours of Tokyo’s shops and markets, as well as hands-on cooking classes. Her writing has been featured in such publications as Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, Time, The Washington Post, The Japan [...]

Grace Young

Posted on 01. Wed, 2010 by grace in Chefs

I grew up in San Francisco surrounded, on the one hand, by the immigrant Chinese traditions of my family and relatives, and, on the other, by innovative American culture. My earliest memories of food are of the extraordinary meals my mother and father prepared for us (my brother and me) and of the efforts they made to ensure that we ate well. Their care was not only a matter of selecting the freshest ingredients, but also for the authenticity with which they replicated the traditional Cantonese dishes of their youth in China during the 1930s and forties. This connection to the cooking of old-world China coupled with the discovery of Julia Child on television (and her “exotic” dishes) shaped my [...]

Debbie Lee

Posted on 01. Mon, 2010 by grace in Chefs

In June 2009, Debbie Lee was a finalist on the Food Network’s reality TV series “The Next Food Network Star,” competing for a chance to win her own show. Her performance garnered praise from esteemed industry veterans, including Bobby Flay, Ina Garten, Giada De Laurentiis, and Morimoto, among others. Being the first Asian-American female to finish in the top three of any culinary-based TV show, Lee has proven that her unconventional cooking style and unique cultural background is her secret weapon. Combining her Korean heritage and Southern upbringing in a winning combination, Lee is known for her “Seoul to Soul” culinary perspective, where she effortlessly blends together Asian and American cuisines. Trained alongside some of the best French chefs on [...]

Wendy Tien

Posted on 01. Sat, 2010 by grace in Chefs

Wendy Tien was born and raised just outside Milwaukee, WI. Her parents both came from southern Taiwan – her mom from Tainan, and her dad from a very small town called Liujia, at the corner of Wushantou Reservoir. They came to the States for graduate study – like many people – and settled in suburban Milwaukee when my dad secured a tenure track position in the political science department at an area university. Growing up, Wendy ate the typical foods of 1970s Wisconsin – chili con carne, meat lasagne, spaghetti with meat sauce, tacos made with the Ortega taco-in-a-box kit, a lot of pizza. My mom, the librarian at our local junior high during her youth, alternated these hearty midwestern [...]