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FOOD NETWORK Kathy Fang stars in the reality series, Chef Dynasty: House of Fang. |
A new reality show captures the familiar clash between East and West, -- between authenticity and fusion and between first generation and second generation -- that forges something entirely new.
Chef and restaurateur Kathy Fang serves up mouthwatering Chinese fusion dishes that challenge conventional culinary ideas at Fang, the hot restaurant she co-owns in San Francisco with her father Chef Peter
Fang. This father/daughter duo is a dominant force in San Francisco’s food world and now Kathy is ready to expand their business while honoring their roots in the six-episode docuseries Chef Dynasty: House of Fang.
Kathy grew up immersed in food culture at her father’s iconic Chinatown restaurant House of Nanking. After school, she'd sit at the back of the restaurant doing he homework while the world of a Chinese American restaurant, servers, cooks and customers swirled around her.FYI: Chef Dynasty: House of Fang premieres Tuesday, Dec. 27 at 9|8c on Food Network and streaming on discovery+.The reality series shows Kathy, now an adult with a couple of Food Network series wins under her belt, trying to "elevate" Chinese cuisine to a new level. Her concept for modernizing menus, risk taking and embracing young influencers doesn’t always go over well with the more traditional Peter, who has been called “the godfather of Chinese cuisine,” and she is constantly trying to convince him that they must innovate in order to expand and achieve what she coins “Chinese cuisine world domination.”
Viewers might recognize her from her appearances on Food Network, she is a two-time Chopped champion and has also appeared on Alex vs. America, Beat Bobby Flay and Guy’s Grocery Games. She is also author of “Easy Asian Cookbook."
“The Fang family are royalty in the Bay Area – Kathy is an incredible chef, entrepreneur, wife and mom who is dedicated to pushing culinary limits while staying true to her hard-to-please father Peter’s vision,” said Jane Latman, President, Home & Food Content and Streaming, Warner Bros. Discovery. “Their push-pull dynamic is sure to resonate with our viewers, who will be charmed and inspired by this family’s business and home life.”
Born and raised in San Francisco, Kathy Fang grew up in the kitchen of her family’s popular restaurant, House of Nanking, before opening Fang Restaurant with her father in 2009 as co-owner and chef.
“Anyone who watches it is going to be proud it’s in San Francisco and also will, I think, want to come and visit,” Kathy told the outlet, adding that luckily, some neighborhoods in her native city, which she calls “beautiful,” were able to “flourish more due to the pandemic.”
“The Fang family are royalty in the Bay Area – Kathy is an incredible chef, entrepreneur, wife and mom who is dedicated to pushing culinary limits while staying true to her hard-to-please father Peter’s vision,” said Jane Latman, President, Home & Food Content and Streaming, Warner Bros. Discovery. “Their push-pull dynamic is sure to resonate with our viewers, who will be charmed and inspired by this family’s business and home life.”
Born and raised in San Francisco, Kathy Fang grew up in the kitchen of her family’s popular restaurant, House of Nanking, before opening Fang Restaurant with her father in 2009 as co-owner and chef.
“Anyone who watches it is going to be proud it’s in San Francisco and also will, I think, want to come and visit,” Kathy told the outlet, adding that luckily, some neighborhoods in her native city, which she calls “beautiful,” were able to “flourish more due to the pandemic.”
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FOOD NETWORK Kathy Fang (third from right) with some of restaurant employees. |
Kathy further noted that her favorite moments of filming in San Francisco took place specifically in Chinatown, with the Food Network star calling the neighborhood “my childhood in a nutshell.” She added, “It’s where my family’s restaurant was born. I was literally born in Chinatown, at the Chinese Hospital, and this is the place where I fell in love with food and cooking.”
The six-episode series follows the father-daughter duo relationship ebb and flow between familial love and business tension as they operate as chefs and co-owners of the family’s second restaurant, Fang, a few blocks from the original House of Nanking.
Kathy's desire to expand the restaurant menu to include new variations from the traditional recipes is the source of the tension familiar between first-generation immigrants and their Americanized children.
“The core of the show is the dynamic that I have with my dad and the story of how all of this came to be. Not just for people who are Asian, but any immigrant family who saw their parents toil,” Kathy told SF Gate. “People, they may look at me, and they may think, ‘Oh, she’s American-born Chinese. Totally westernized. Very American.’ But, I’m like, very, very traditional, even in the relationship with my dad.”
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