Charles Phan is a self-taught chef whose family emigrated from Vietnam as a teenager, and whose sophisticated restaurant combines a menu of inexpensive noodle dishes and spring rolls with the best local ingredients and dishes. By replacing it, it helped change America's perception of Asian cuisine. He grew up in San Francisco and died Monday. He was 62 years old.
His death was confirmed by Anh Duong, a spokesperson for the restaurant group, at the hospital where he was taken last week after suffering a cardiac arrest during a tennis match.
Mr. Hwang has become something of a star in the food world. He has published two cookbooks, competed on the TV show “Iron Chef” and walked the streets of Saigon with Anthony Bourdain on his TV show “Parts Unknown.” He has fed celebrities such as Rihanna, Stephen Curry, and the Obamas. But despite his fame, he rarely turned down invitations to donate time or food to charity events or help other chefs.
His success at the Slanted Door restaurant, which he opened in San Francisco in 1995, was the result of an immigrant who had long wanted food critics and diners to value his country's cuisine in the same way as Italian or French cuisine. He encouraged other chefs who came from his family.
“When he opened the restaurant, we knew right away what it was going to be,” Rob Lamb, chef-owner of San Francisco's Lily, said in an interview. “We thought, hey, this is a game changer. Now we can go from the street to the dining room.”
Phan realized it was a gamble to make her mother's dishes with the finest local ingredients used in kitchens like San Francisco's Zuni Café.
“Let's be realistic,” he told The Washington Post in 2017. “Twenty years ago, I had to ask, 'Will white people eat this?' Will they pay me for this?' If they saw the bones, they would be angry. It was about trying to survive as a business.”
It was a smart bet. After working several jobs, including selling software, designing clothing, and running a family-owned sewing shop, Huang opened Slanted Door on Valencia Street in the Mission District with help from his family.
The street has gone from a neighborhood of bohemians, Spanish-speaking immigrants, and run-down Victorian homes to a neighborhood filled with boutiques, third-wave coffee shops, and the city's most innovative restaurants, and the area's high-tech boom. It was at the peak of.
Diners sometimes had to evade drug deals to get to Slanted Door, which occupied a small space he renovated. But once inside, we were rewarded with fat American Dungeness crab claws on cellophane noodles and a beef shake known in Vietnamese as bò lúc lắc. This name refers to the method in which cooks must keep a hot pot constantly moving in order to sear meat. In Vietnam, this dish is often made by chopping the tough parts of beef into small pieces and frying them until almost crispy.
Hwang recreated the dish using the same medium-rare cubes of beef that Alice Waters used at her famous Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse, and replaced the lettuce with natural, local watercress. Served with it. It became the most popular dish at his restaurant.
“Food just caught my eye,” Miriam Morgan, a former food editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, said in an interview. “You thought, 'What is this?'” It was very bright and very fresh. The flavors just popped. ”
In 2004, he moved the restaurant to the city's Ferry Building, taking over a prime 8,000-square-foot Beaux-Arts space with mesmerizing views of San Francisco Bay. By 2014, annual sales were $16.5 million, making it California's most profitable independent restaurant.
Tuan Phan was born on July 30, 1962 in Da Lat, then the capital of South Vietnam and popular with vacationers. His parents, Quyen Fan and Hung Cong Fan, were immigrants from China. Mr. Phan was the first in his family to be born in Vietnam and the eldest of six children.
His family owned a general store and were financially comfortable enough to hire maids to do most of the cooking. After Saigon fell to North Vietnamese forces in 1975, Phan joined the millions who fled the country and boarded a ship bound for Guam.
“When we were safe in international waters, my mother took me on board the ship and said, “From now on, you must be in charge of this family and take care of your brothers.'' '' he told the Washington Post. 'I was 13 years old. My childhood ended that day. ”
After a year and a half in a refugee camp, the family landed in San Francisco. American sponsors took six of Fan's children to the doctor and gave each one an American name.
Once settled in Chinatown, Huang worked any job he could find, often in restaurants. At home, he cooked for his family while his parents each worked two jobs. He experimented with assimilated foods, including a Thanksgiving dinner straight from Gourmet magazine. No one liked it so my family had curry rice instead.
Mr. Phan went on to study architecture and design at the University of California, Berkeley, where he met Pichet Ong, a graduate student and longtime friend who later became a pastry chef.
The two improved their English by listening to singer Karen Carpenter's songs. “For me, it was because she loved music, but for him it was about improving her accent, because she was very good at expressing her words,” Ong said in an interview. Ta. By his third year, Hwang was fed up with the tuition increases and dropped out of the university.
Following the success of “Slanted Door,” he opened and closed a series of other restaurants, including a Cantonese-focused restaurant, a whiskey bar, and a banh mi outlet.
Slanted Door has expanded to San Ramon and Napa in California, as well as Beaune in France's Burgundy wine region. His flagship store in the Ferry Building closed during the coronavirus pandemic and never reopened. He planned to return it to its original location on Valencia Street after he died.
He is survived by five brothers and sisters, three children, and his mother, Ancana Kurtac.
Food writer Joanne Nathan said Mr. Phan was the best speaker she knew.
“Even the most mundane stories were funny,” she says. “He was one of those people you wanted to sit with and have a glass of wine and listen to his stories. He was hysterical.”
And he generously devoted his time to helping other chefs find their footing. Auckland restaurant owner Tanya Holland met him at a Meals on Wheels event when she didn't know anyone in the city. He became a trusted advisor, helping her with lease negotiations and media relations.
“He wasn't leading out of ego like a lot of people,” she said in an interview. “He felt there was enough space for everyone to participate.”
Mr. Huang has made it his mission to spread kindness in an industry that doesn't always offer it.
“I felt so stepped on and humiliated that I even punched the locker door,” he told the San Jose Mercury News in 2003. We have to stop that cycle. You can't abuse people. That's what makes food taste bad. ”
