BANISHING THE CLICHÉS
Céline Chung's Bao Family Cookbook celebrates the diversity of Chinese cuisine
The Bao Family Cookbook connects restaurateur Céline Chung's two cultures: her Chinese heritage and Parisian home. An extension of her Bao Family chain of restaurants, where chefs use locally sourced French ingredients to make classic Chinese dishes, the esthetic is bold and modern. The recipes, inspired by her mother's home cooking and favourites shared by Bao Family chefs, celebrate the diversity and regionality of Chinese cuisine.
Since Chung founded Bao Family with Billy Pham in 2018, one restaurant has grown into four, with the first outside Paris set to open in Marseille in spring-summer 2024. The Bao Family Cookbook was published in France in 2022, then in Italy that same year and, in 2023, in Canada and the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.
On Jan. 18, 2019, Chung and Pham opened Petit Bao, the first Bao Family restaurant. In designing the space, they took equal inspiration from Paris and Shanghai to show a different side of Chinese dining. Their addition to Paris's gastronomic scene hit its mark; people lined up for a table just one week after opening. They weren't just coming — they were coming back.
“I remember my heart was beating so fast. It was so exciting. And this excitement and this happiness led us to today,” says Chung, laughing. “Having now four restaurants and a cookbook published worldwide and new projects to come.”
Chung was born in Paris, and her family is from Wenzhou, a city in China's Zhejiang province. At 20, driven by a desire to discover China firsthand, she did a university exchange in Shanghai. “I had this double culture inside myself. When I was growing up, I didn't understand how we could live so differently in different cultures. The values are not the same. The traditions are not the same. We don't eat the same food. And I was always questioning who I am. `What is my place in this world? How can I define myself ?' So it was really an identity quest.”
Drawn in by the rich food culture, she ate widely, visiting Yunnan, Sichuan, Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Beijing. When she returned to Paris after her studies, she craved the food she had tasted there.
Chung had long looked for ways to bridge her cultures. When searching for a meaningful project, she realized that sharing meals with family and friends are life's best moments, whether in China or France.
“For me, the link between China and France is our sensitivity to the table and to food,” she says. “We wake up in the morning, and we are thinking about, `What am I going to get for my breakfast? What am I going to get for lunch? What am I going to get for dinner? What am I going to cook for this weekend, because I will welcome my family? What products? What wine?' We always think about food. It's part of our daily life.”
Chung wrote the Bao Family Cookbook with her team. The more than 80 recipes span chapters on breakfast, appetizers, bao and dim sum, soups and noodles, mains, rice and noodles and desserts. They designed the dishes to be reproducible at home, with straightforward techniques and accessible ingredients.
The same creative process at play at the restaurants is reflected in the recipes. The book features portraits of Bao Family chefs alongside their visions of Chinese cuisine.
Recipes excerpted from Bao Family Cookbook: Recipes from the Eight Culinary Regions of China (Interlink Books).