Since 1995, Charles Phan, owner and executive chef of San Francisco's famedSlanted Door, has been wowing palates and educating diners on the flavors and intricacies of Vietnamese cuisine. And although the popularity of Vietnamese food may not yet match that of other Asian cuisines—Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Thai—Phan has already left his mark not only on the San Francisco dining scene but on the American fine-dining scene as well. In 2004 Phan won the James Beard Award for Best Chef, California, and in 2011, he was inducted into the James Beard Foundation's Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America.
Recipes from Charles Phan'sVietnamese Home Cooking
- Grilled Pork Chops with Sweet Lemongrass Marinade
- Steamed Whole Fish with Ginger, Scallions, and Soy
- Bún Bò Hue
- Crispy Fried Shallots
- Rice Noodles
While less-seasoned chefs have already written cookbooks, Phan is just getting around to publishing his first:Vietnamese Home Cooking(Ten Speed Press). And unlike so many chefs whose first cookbooks often reflect a restaurant state of mind, Phan takes the opposite approach by focusing on traditional home cooking for today's cosmopolitan cook. Some recipes are more familiar than others—pho, banh mi—but spend some time with the book and even the unfamiliar dishes will soon seem like old favorites.
Phan spoke with us about his passion for pottery and throwing pots, his family's entrepreneurial spirit, and how to best cook from his cookbook. Plus, he shares his recipes forGrilled Pork Chops with Sweet Lemongrass Marinade,Steamed Whole Fish with Ginger, Scallions, and Soy, andBún Bò Hue.
Watch Charles Phan in our exclusive video featureas he takes charge in the kitchen at the Slanted Door and discusses the importance of telling a story with food.
Epicurious:You call yourself a glorified home cook. What do you mean by that?
Charles Phan:I learned most of my cooking from mainly women at home—my aunt, my mom—in Vietnam. A lot of people differentiate between a professional cook and a home cook. My [culinary] base is home cooking.
Epi:You studied architecture at UC Berkeley and you used to throw pots. How did that ultimately shape the way you cook, run a restaurant, and even design your restaurants? Are there similarities between being an architect and being a chef?
CP:I wasn't very good at math, science, reading, writing. The only things left were the art classes. I threw pots all through high school. Being the first [in my family] to go to college, my dad wasn't going to have me just throwing pots. With architecture, I started thinking about space, ambience. At the end of the day, everything I do is about using my hands, doing something physical—something you can touch and feel.
Epi:What was your family's reaction to your wanting to open a restaurant?
CP:My mom and dad were very supportive. It was pretty normal for us to open businesses we didn't know anything about. The rest of the family thought I was nuts.
Epi:So it sounds like you had the entrepreneurial drive already.
CP:My dad went rags to riches a few times: In China, he lost everything. [Then he] went to Vietnam and then came here [to America]. And if you look at the rest of the family, everyone thinks like a businessperson.
Epi:Tell us about your background in cooking, and how it inspired this book.
CP:过去的17年里,我一直在restau烹饪rant. Going back further than that, I started cooking in 1977, 1978 when I was 15. In 1975 we left Vietnam. I was separated from my family, living with a couple who sponsored us on Guam. My aunt and I lived with them, and I'd help my aunt out with the cooking and do other chores—mow the lawn, wash the car. I'd see my folks once a week. And I remember watchingJacques Pépin's show on TV. A few months ago at the Pebble Beach Food & Wine Festival, I told him, "It's because of you I'm in the food business." All of that culminated into what I wanted to do. I guess I always feel a little bit insecure about my so-called cooking. I never went to school—I just learned it on my own. But I guess after 17 years of cooking for a 900-cover dinner, or serving 500 people in one evening or 750-people dinners with just my team in Hawaii—some things sort of stuck.
Epi:When you go back to Vietnam, where do you go, and what do you eat?
CP:There are so many new places, but usually I go back to the market. Perfect beef noodle soup is a must. For breakfast: porridge. And because there are a lot of expats, there is lots more food now. The expats take me to a lot of these places because the restaurant scene is changing by the month. It's usually a local, bustling hole-in-the-wall kind of place.
Epi:Vietnamese cuisine has had a multitude of influences: French, Chinese, Thai. How has Vietnamese food here in America been shaped?
CP:In general, most Vietnamese restaurants here follow the tradition of the homeland, and those traditions have been shaped by other cultures and indigenous ways of thinking. Eating salads with fried foods, herbs, and textures—those are preferences, not techniques, that the Vietnamese have formed. Some Vietnamese might embrace New Orleans food or Cajun food, and they open up a Cajun restaurant and maybe they'll infuse some Vietnamese fish sauce [into the dishes]. My food would be an example of a hybrid of the two cultures: ingredient-driven plus some of the techniques, like how Americans like their scallops crispy or want the beef medium-rare, even though they cook it all the way through in Vietnam. I would infuse some of those ways into Vietnamese food, but I really try to keep it as close to what the experience in Vietnam is.
Epi:As a restaurateur, how has the American food culture changed from when you first opened the Slanted Door until now?
CP:It's changed immensely. People were skittish about trying new things. When they'd be served whole fish, they didn't want to see the heads. Younger people today are willing to try. Twenty years ago, I didn't see young people eating squab, or spending money to go to a really hip restaurant to eat.
I was in Brooklyn atRoberta's昨晚。这是在偏僻的地方。每一个one inside was probably under 30 years old. On the menu was squab, carpaccio. I think people are a lot more into food than ever. When I was in high school, I didn't see people talk about food. People are open to a lot more things. They're not tied to one particular style.
Epi:You've expanded your restaurant empire. What can we expect from you next?
CP:We flirted with New York for a bit, but no… In San Francisco, we're doing a Cajun bar—a Southern bar with Southern food. We'll venture into New Orleans cocktails and New Orleans food. It's a small bar—1,300 square feet. We just took the Tales of the Cocktail's "Best Restaurant Bar in the Country" award. It just shows what bar manager Erik Adkins has been doing for 10 years. Even before the cocktail craze, we were one of the few restaurants that created handmade cocktails. I was really happy when he won the award because sometimes it's hard to be known for another thing. That's why he put in the time, the effort. He is good.
Epi:So why a Cajun bar?
CP:I really like bourbon. Me and my architect Olle Lundberg, we drink together every Monday. I also just love that type of food: great history, unique mix of cultures that make the food. And sometimes location will dictate the kind of food: It's right by the water.
Epi:A lot of chefs don't really cook at home. In the book, you talk about a dish you make for your child, and the fried rice that you make for yourself, but what are meals like in the Phan household?
CP:It depends. Weekends, we have a place in Napa and we go up there, which means I'm not going to another restaurant or grocery store. We usually stay in the house for two nights. I'll have different projects going: Might get the yeast going, get some meat marinated. I like to cook with a lot of fire. In the wintertime, I'll have the fire going all the time, have a stew braising away on a wood fire in the hearth. I've got a tandoori oven so I can make tandoori chicken. Naan's real tricky, trying to get it to stick to the wall.
Let's say I'm mowing the lawn and don't want to cook that much. I might quickly assemble a stir-fry or grill. The kids are involved with cooking. Well, one of them. The younger one, especially, likes to help out, making pasta from scratch. We do everything by scratch because the nearest store is 20 to 30 minutes away.
At home when I'm in the city, I need to get dinner done in 15, 20 minutes. I don't have more time than that. You can really easily whip up shrimp with tofu in a clay pot. While that's going, you can get your vegetables cleaned. I sell fresh cooking kits at the Slanted Door, and the reason why I created these cooking kits was I was getting in late and getting yelled at. My wife would want everything on time, and it's a school night.
Epi:If there's one dish that people should try from your cookbook as an introduction to cooking Vietnamese food at home, what would that be?
CP:I say pick a technique and an ingredient that you like to eat and then go from there. It depends on the tools. If you can't grill, it won't matter. Pick a recipe with only a few steps, something easy! That's how my head thinks: I feel like something steamed today. And then: I don't feel like meat, so fish. Once you learn these things and it's in your head, it might take you twice as long in the beginning but it'll get easy, and you can even do it without a book.
Epi:Do you foresee Vietnamese cuisine enjoying the same type of popularity that Spanish and Nordic cuisines have recently come to enjoy, with its new techniques and international flair?
CP:No, not really. For one thing, there are more people in the European camp than the Asian camp, so I don't see a lot. But who knows, that might change. It's only natural that culinary schools are still focused on European cuisine with French and Italian techniques.
Epi:How are you teaching the next generation of Phans a love of food, and an appreciation of the cooking process?
CP:I do expose them to good food, a lot of food. In some ways, they're kind of brainwashed. They don't like fast food. And they're a little spoiled: When we went camping, I made paella over the wood fire, and they think that every time you go camping that you lug coolers and even bring wood. The littlest one watches a lot of cooking shows. I think teaching them how to eat is more important than learning how to cook. They might not like to cook but learning how to eat is important. If my son wants something bad enough, he'll get off his computer game and make some food. But if he never knew how good food could be, he'd never stop eating cereal.
