Finalists for chef award include familiar face and first-time pick
For Jianyun Ye, the chef at Mala Sichuan Bistro, Wednesday was like any other day. He got to work in the kitchen at 10:30 a.m., clocked out at 3 p.m. and returned for dinner service two hours later.
Until the tail end of his lunch shift, Ye was unaware — as were the owners of the small restaurant sandwiched in a strip center between an electronics store and a noodle shop in Chinatown — that the James Beard Foundation had announced his name, along with Houston chef Hugo Ortega, as a finalist in the Best Chef Southwest category for the organization’s annual awards, the Oscars of the food world.
In fact Ye, who doesn’t speak English, didn’t know much at all about the James Beard Awards. Cori Xiong, who owns Mala Sichuan with her husband, Heng Chen, explained the prestige of it to him. And even she was hazy
on the details, peppering a reporter with questions about how Ye, and in tandem her restaurant, came to be considered for such an accolade.
When it opened in 2011, Mala Sichuan brought exciting new regional focus coupled with solid quality to Bellaire Boulevard. The complex flavors and tongue-numbing pepper wizardry of the southwestern Sichuan province had had only limited representation in Houston — and none at the high, consistent level established by Xiong and Chen.
The young couple, 31 and 30 respectively, served as the public face of the restaurant as its reputation grew. They won kudos for their smart, serious menu and savvy decision to add wines and beers curated by local cult sommelier Justin Vann. As at many Chinatown restaurants, Mala Sichuan chefs over the years labored behind the scenes (and the language barrier), unknown to all but the most fanatic diners. Other local chefs, including James Beard Award winner Chris Shepherd, became repeat customers.
The nomination for Ye was no accident. In January, the 17-member chef and restaurant committee for the Beard Awards — composed of food journalists and critics who winnow down a long list of semifinalists — met in Houston with the express intent of canvassing the city’s restaurant landscape.
“We’ve been making a conscious effort to move beyond the obvious bigname chefs cooking in a European and Mediterranean idiom,” said Texas Monthly restaurant critic Pat Sharpe, the co-chair of the judging contingent for the Southwest region, which includes Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma, Utah and Arizona. “We as a committee don’t want to be stuck in the past. The times change.
“We liked the food there so much. (Ye isn’t) a chef with a compelling story and a PR agency behind him. It was strictly based off of loving the food.”
Ye, 58, who is from Chengdu in the Sichuan province of China, has been Mala Sichuan’s chef for two years. He has lived in Houston for 16 years, previously working at a now-shuttered Chinese restaurant. He got his current job after the departure of Mala Sichuan’s former chef, Rong Wu, whom Ye credits for helping put the restaurant on the map.
With Xiong as a translator, Ye said he has been working in kitchens his whole life. He graduated from culinary school in China in 1978, and cooked Sichuan food there before moving to the U.S.
“It’s very rewarding to get recognition for something I’ve been doing for so many years,” he said. Especially in the U.S., he added.
“It’s more meaningful here because I’m introducing a type of food to people who aren’t Chinese.”
Xiong said she didn’t think Ye had a shot because Mala Sichuan’s food is not fine dining.
“It doesn’t seem real to me,” Xiong said. “Our food is ethnic food to the American people, but to Chinese people it’s traditional cooking and true to its origin.”
While it’s Ye’s first nomination for a Beard Award, it’s Ortega’s sixth. Still, he is thrilled to be a finalist.
“It means the world to all of us, and as Houstonians to represent this wonderful city,” he said.
Ortega, 52, was nominated for his work at Hugo’s, a Montrose restaurant serving regional Mexican food. He and his wife, Tracy Vaught, own H Town Restaurant Group, which also includes Backstreet Café, Caracol and Xochi.
Ortega is planning to attend the black-tie awards ceremony, to be held May 1 in Chicago. But not just as a nominee. He’s been invited to cook for the awards dinner, along with other superstar chefs from around the country.
“Now I have to figure out the logistics for bringing 1,200 bites of food,” he said.
The other finalists in the Best Chef Southwest category are Bryce Gilmore of Barley Swine in Austin; Steve McHugh of Cured in San Antonio; Martín Rios of Restaurant Martín in Santa Fe, N.M.; and Steve Redzikowski of Acorn restaurant in Denver. Only three Houston chefs have ever won a James Beard Award: Robert Del Grande (1992), Shepherd (2014) and Justin Yu (2016).
Xiong and Ye are not sure they will attend the ceremony.
“We already have an event in May,” she said. jody.schmal@chron.com twitter.com/jodyschmal