A family-owned restaurant thrives in San Francisco on ‘Chef Dynasty: House of Fang’

If family dynamics served with a side of restaurant business is what you crave, a docuseries coming to Food Network and discovery+ may sate the palate.

In “Chef Dynasty: House of Fang,” premiering Tuesday, Dec. 27, viewers are introduced to the Fang family of San Francisco, who own and operate the House of Nanking, a popular Chinese eatery and fixture on the Financial District culinary scene since 1988.

At the restaurant’s heart are its father/daughter co-owners Peter and Kathy Fang, who also represent its yin and yang. While Peter, 74, is old school and tends to prefer the recipes that made the restaurant the hot destination it is, 40-year-old Kathy feels it’s important to modernize the menu, take risks and play to young influencers.

And while there is a natural conflict between these forces, “Chef Dynasty” isn’t about arguments and drama, stresses Kathy Fang, as much as it is a window into the running of a successful family restaurant. And it all starts with her and Peter.

“There’s this whole theory with my dad that if it’s not broken don’t fix it,” she explains. “And it’s hard sometimes because my dad has been so successful with House of Nanking, you can’t argue with him

... . He’s always talking about people coming in and wanting the same things. They don’t want new dishes; they want the same friggin’ thing that they had 20 years ago. They’ll be sad if it’s not there anymore. So there are a lot of valid points to what my dad is saying and I take all those into account.

“But we also still have to innovate and change with the times,” she continues, “because I don’t think you can do the same exact thing for 50 years. Maybe you can do it for 40 years, 45, but it’s not going to work 60 to 80 if we want to create this dynasty. Maybe my kids will want to do this, too, then we do have to evolve . ... I’m trying to make that happen but I want my dad on board every step of the way.”

Along with the requisite kitchen scenes with staff, there will be shots of dinner service. For this, cameras were brought into the dining room, which made some diners uncomfortable and request seating off camera. But others were intrigued and embraced the experience.

“Some people come here to celebrate birthdays,” Fang notes, “and they’re so excited that they could actually be on the show on the day of their birthday that people stayed longer. They’re like, ‘We’re going to get more drinks. I hope you don’t mind. We’re going to stay at this table the whole time.’ ”

“So what I was concerned about early on, (that) it might disrupt the business, kind of faded away later as we realized that most of the time people were actually very excited about it.”