Khai Duong, Executive Chef at Ana Mandara in San Francisco, is considered one for the world’s leading Asian chefs, and one of the pioneers of modern Vietnamese cuisine.
He has been featured in Gourmet Magazine, Bon Appetit, InStyle Magazine, USA Today, The San Francisco Chronicle, and many others. Duong has uniquely combined authentic Vietnamese cuisine with classic French technique. Wife and Executive Sous Chef, Kieu-Loan Phan “Mimi,” also brings her extensive repertoire of traditional family Vietnamese recipes to the Ana Mandara offerings.
Using these traditional recipes and inspiration from his native village of Nha Trang (on the south central coast of Vietnam), Duong has created some of the most original and striking executions of Executive Chef Khai Duong, Ana Mandara, San Francisco modern Vietnamese dishes in the world at Ana Mandara since its opening in 2000. Ana Mandara is one of the few Asian restaurants in the US that has a full-time sommelier and has consistently been awarded the Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence.
Duong’s professional experience includes stints at Le Bernardin in New York City, the Boca Raton Resort Hotel (Mobil 5 star/5 diamond) in Florida, the Maui Prince Hotel in Hawaii, and Le Colonial in Beverly Hills where he was at the forefront of introducing upscale Vietnamese cuisine to the American palate.
Duong was recently featured on ABC-TV for Asian Heritage Week and hosts a weekly cooking show on local Vietnamese television. Duong has also assisted in the preparation of a dinner served at the Beard House in New York City.
Duong is the founder of Chefs Without Borders and the Asian Chefs Association in response to the December 2004 tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in September 2005. Contemporaries Martin Yan, Roy Yamaguchi , Arnold Eric Wong, Chris Yeo and Lawrence Chu, among others, give selflessly of their time and resources for the community and global disasters. Duong is also active with the Viet Heritage Society.
One of 11 siblings, Duong emigrated to the US in 1975 and helped his family open one of New England’s first Vietnamese restaurants. The family continued with several successful restaurant ventures, but Duong was drawn to a vision of developing Vietnamese cuisine into an art.
Duong attended Le Cordon Bleu Academie Culinaire De Paris where he received a Grand Diploma, Summa Cum Laude, in Classical French Cuisine and Patisserie and graduated first in his class. He is degreed, with honors, from the Ecole Lenotre Francaise Gastronomique and the Academie Du Vin, also in Paris.
“Chef Khai,” as he is affectionately called, and Mimi, have a young daughter and son, Aivy and Phat. Chef Khai reports that they love to watch their parents at work in the kitchen, and already Aivy has stated that she wants to be a chef when she grows up.
When not in the kitchen at Ana Mandara, Duong enjoys spending time with his family, traveling to Vietnam and other countries, and experimenting at home with new recipes and ingredients.
Chef Khai has hosted several tours to Vietnam for students and acquaintances eager to learn about Vietnam, and who want to embark on Vietnamese culinary expeditions.
