Bobby Chinn

Last updated

Bobby Chinn
Born
Auckland, New Zealand
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Richmond College (B.A.)
Occupations
  • Chef
  • TV host
  • restaurateur
  • author

Bobby Chinn is an American international chef, television presenter, restaurateur and cookbook author. [1] He is a culinary celebrity across Asia and the Middle East, thanks to his role as host of Discovery TLC's World Cafe, [2] and as a judge on MBC's Top Chef Middle East. [3] He opened two award-winning restaurants in Vietnam – Restaurant Bobby Chinn in Hanoi (2001) and Bobby Chinn Saigon in Ho Chi Minh (2011), then relocated to London in 2014 and opened the House of Ho Vietnamese restaurant. [4]

Contents

Early life and education

Bobby Chinn was born in Auckland, New Zealand to a Chinese-American father and an Egyptian mother. [5] His grandfather was Egyptian military commander Saad El Shazly. [6]

Chinn was educated at St. George's College in Cairo [7] and Millfield in England [8] before graduating from the Urban School of San Francisco. [9] Chinn then graduated from Richmond College in London in 1986, where he earned a BA in finance and economics. [10] In 2020 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Liberal Arts from Richmond College. [11]

After graduating, Chinn worked as a research analyst in Boca Raton, Florida, then a hedge fund in San Francisco, before moving to New York City where he worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. [12]

Career

Chinn's culinary career began at the Elka Restaurant in the Miyako Hotel in San Francisco, [13] working under notable chefs Elka Gilmore and Traci Des Jardins. His big break came from Hubert Keller of Fleur de Lys, where he worked the pantry for a year. [14] He was part of the opening team at the Coconut Grove on Van Ness Avenue, where he became the saucier, but succumbed to a back injury. He work-staged in France, then returned to San Francisco for back surgery.

In 1995, Chinn moved to Ho Chi Minh City [15] and worked at La Camargue restaurant. Within six months, he had opened his own restaurant, Saigon Joe's, and moved to Hanoi to open another restaurant, Miro. In 1997, he opened the Red Onion, overlooking the infamous "Hanoi Hilton". [16] The success of the restaurant gave him the opportunity to open his eponymous restaurant in 2001, Restaurant Bobby Chinn. [17]

In 2014, Chinn moved to London and launched a modern Vietnamese concept at the House of Ho, which occupies the former site of the 2i's Coffee Bar, Soho. [18]

Television

Chinn's television career was launched with his first solo TV show, World Café Asia, on TLC [19] [2] – also known as Planet Food on the Discovery Channel – presenting a taste of Asia through traditional street stalls, hawker centres, acclaimed restaurants and hot spots. The second season, World Café Middle East, had equal success and the franchise has been widely celebrated through multiple entertainment awards including ‘Best Entertainment Presenter’ - World Café Asia (Asia Television Awards 2007), [20] and ‘ Best Entertainment Program’ - World Café Middle East ( Asia Television Awards, 2010).The show was re-cut and sold to Globe Trekker. He hosted Globe Trekker Food Hour: Ireland in 2014, and Globe Trekker Food Hour: Sicily in 2015. Following the success of his first show, Chinn hosted a second show with Discovery Network, called Bobby Chinn Cooks Asia, a travel cookery series which highlights Asian recipes laced with local history and culture. Over the last decade, Bobby has established himself as a mainstay of the global food-channel networks including Discovery TLC, MBC, Globe Trekker, Food Network, CNN, BBC, Channel 4 UK and UKTV, and in addition to World Café and Bobby Chinn Cooks Asia he has solo hosted Detox and Restaurant Bobby Chinn, the latter for which he was nominated for ‘Best Reality Show - Executive Producer’ (Asia Television Awards, 2012 ).

Chinn is a permanent judge on MBC's Top Chef Middle East . [21] and in 2022 it was the first show in the Middle East and Africa to be nominated for an International Emmy. [22]

Cookbook

Chin's cookbook, Wild Wild East: Recipes & Stories from Vietnam was released in 2007. It is both a guide to Vietnamese food and a diary of Chinn's adventures in Vietnam. In the foreword, Anthony Bourdain claims that "what Bobby doesn’t know about Southeast Asian food is not worth knowing". [23]

Ambassador roles

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vietnamese cuisine</span> Culinary traditions of Vietnam

Vietnamese cuisine encompasses the foods and beverages of Vietnam. Meals feature a combination of five fundamental tastes : sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and spicy. The distinctive nature of each dish reflects one or more elements, which are also based around a five-pronged philosophy. Vietnamese recipes use ingredients like lemongrass, ginger, mint, Vietnamese mint, long coriander, Saigon cinnamon, bird's eye chili, lime, and Thai basil leaves. Traditional Vietnamese cooking has often been characterised as using fresh ingredients, not using much dairy or oil, having interesting textures, and making use of herbs and vegetables. The cuisine is also low in sugar and is almost always naturally gluten-free, as many of the dishes are rice-based instead of wheat-based, made with rice noodles, papers and flour. Vietnamese cuisine is strongly influenced not only by the cuisines of neighboring China, Cambodia and Laos, but also by French cuisine due to French colonial rule over the region from 1887 to 1954.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hanoi</span> Capital of Vietnam

Hanoi is the capital and second-most populous city of Vietnam. As evident by the literal translation of its name – 'inside the river' – portions of Hanoi's border are delineated by the Red River and the Black River. As a municipality, Hanoi consists of 12 urban districts, 17 rural districts, and 1 district-level town. It has an area of 3,359.82 km2 (1,297.23 sq mi) and a population of 8,435,700 in 2022. In 2020, Hanoi has the second-highest gross regional domestic product of all Vietnam provinces and municipalities at 51.4 billion USD, behind Ho Chi Minh City. Hanoi Capital is also ASEAN 8th largest economy after Surabaya.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Little Saigon</span> Ethnic enclaves of expatriate Vietnamese in some cities

Little Saigon is a name given to ethnic enclaves of expatriate Vietnamese mainly in English-speaking countries. Alternate names include Little Vietnam and Little Hanoi, depending on the enclave's political history. To avoid political undertones due to the renaming of Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City, it is occasionally called by the neutral name Vietnamtown. Saigon is the former name of the capital of the former South Vietnam, where a large number of first-generation Vietnamese immigrants emigrating to the United States originate from, whereas Hanoi is the current capital of Vietnam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pho</span> Vietnamese soup dish originating from Nam Định

Phở or Pho is a Vietnamese soup dish consisting of broth, rice noodles, herbs, and meat, sometimes chicken. Phở is a popular food in Vietnam where it is served in households, street-stalls, and restaurants country-wide. Residents of the city of Nam Định were the first to create Vietnamese traditional phở. It is considered Vietnam's national dish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cambodian cuisine</span> Culinary traditions of Cambodia

Cambodian cuisine combines the culinary traditions of many different ethnic groups in Cambodia, an important subset of which is Khmer cuisine, the nearly-two-thousand-year-old culinary tradition of the majority Khmer people. Over centuries, Cambodian cuisine has incorporated elements of Indian, Chinese, Portuguese and French cuisine, and due to some of these shared influences and mutual interaction, it has many similarities with the cuisines of Central Thailand, and Southern Vietnam and to a lesser extent also Central Vietnam, Northeastern Thailand and Laos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Curtis Stone</span> Australian chef, author, and television personality (born 1975)

Curtis Travis Stone is an Australian celebrity chef, author, and television personality. Stone has been the fresh food and recipes ambassador for Coles Supermarkets in Australia since 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lee's Sandwiches</span> Vietnamese-American restaurant chain

Lee's Sandwiches International, Inc., is a Vietnamese-American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in San Jose, California, with locations in several states and in Taiwan. Lee's Sandwiches specializes in bánh mì, "European-style" baguette sandwiches, Vietnamese iced coffee, and Vietnamese dessert chè. It is credited with popularizing Vietnamese sandwiches and iced coffee among mainstream American consumers and inspiring several other Vietnamese-owned bakery chains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laurent Manrique</span> French Michelin-starred chef

Laurent Manrique is a French restaurateur and Michelin-starred chef. He currently owns establishments in San Francisco. He was the Corporate Executive Chef of Aqua, an upscale seafood restaurant in San Francisco, where he earned two Michelin stars in 2006, the first time Michelin came to the San Francisco Bay Area, and again in 2007 and 2008. Upon his departure in 2009, the restaurant lost its Michelin status, later closed in 2010. Since 2005, Manrique has owned Café de la Presse.

Hung Huynh is a Vietnamese-born American chef, best known as the winner of the third season of Top Chef, a reality cooking competition series on Bravo. He was the Executive Chef at Catch, The General, and Catch Miami.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luke Nguyen</span> Vietnamese-Australian chef (born 1978)

Luke Nguyen is a Vietnamese–Australian chef, restaurateur and television presenter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Highlands Coffee</span> Vietnamese coffee shop chain

Highlands Coffee is a Vietnamese coffee shop chain and producer and distributor of coffee products, established in Hanoi by Vietnamese American David Thai in 1998. The establishment of the Highlands Coffee company marked the first time an overseas Vietnamese was able to register a private company within Vietnam. As of 2018, the company operates 230 coffee shops across Vietnam. In 2011, Highlands Coffee purchased the pho chain Phở 24 from Lý Quí Trung for an estimated US$20 million. The next year, Highlands sold 50% of its shares to the Philippine multinational chain Jollibee for US$25 million.

Josh Capon is an American chef and television personality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bun cha</span> Vietnamese dish

Bún chả is a Vietnamese dish of grilled pork and noodles, which is thought to have originated from Hanoi, Vietnam. Bún chả is served with grilled fatty pork (chả) over a plate of white rice noodles (bún) and herbs with a side dish of dipping sauce. The dish was described in 1959 by Vietnamese food writer Vu Bang (1913–1984), who described Hanoi as a town "transfixed by bún chả." Hanoi's first bún chả restaurant was on Gia Ngư, Hoàn Kiếm District, in Hanoi's Old Quarter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ranveer Brar</span> Indian Chef

Ranveer Singh Brar is an Celebrity chef, Masterchef India judge, Author, Restaurateur and Actor. He is well known as the host of popular Television food shows and as a judge in MasterChef India, alongside fellow chefs Sanjeev Kapoor, Vikas Khanna ,Vineet Bhatia, Garima Arora and Pooja Dhingra

Bobby Chinn is a restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam, situated near the perimeter of the Old Quarter, overlooking Hoàn Kiếm Lake. It is run by American chef Bobby Chinn. It serves a mixture of Californian, French, and Vietnamese cuisine, as well as a variety of international tapas-style dishes.

Jack Lee is an American celebrity chef of Chinese descent based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He is often referred to in Vietnamese media as đầu bếp Hollywood or đầu bếp của ngôi sao in recognition of his background as private caterer for numerous Hollywood celebrities in the United States, which by association has advanced his public profile in Vietnam. At the height of his career while based in America, he was the executive chef of Baroness Kimberly Moore's Echelon Club, a charitable lifestyle organization for high-profile individuals in Hollywood, and banquet chef at the Hotel Bel-Air. He has featured on a number of television series both in Vietnam and the United States, including Rachael vs. Guy: Kids Cook-Off;, Cutthroat Kitchen, Food of the Stars and Food Paradise. He is currently appearing as a judge on Junior MasterChef Vietnam as well as Vietnam’s version of My Mom Cooks Better Than Yours on state-owned channel VTV3 and is also filming for the Asian Food Channel. He has been promoting Netspace Culinary Academy in Vietnam with celebrity chef Anna Olson and is a goodwill ambassador for the culinary charity K.O.T.O.. In 2018, the prominent Vietnamese-language magazine The Thao Van Hoa named Jack Lee Chef of the Year.

Viet Pham is a chef and a previous winner of Iron Chef America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Phan</span> American chef and restaurateur (b. 1942)

Charles Phan is an American chef, cookbook author, and restaurateur. He is the executive chef and founder of "The Slanted Door" restaurant in San Francisco, California and The Slanted Door Group of restaurants. He has published two cookbooks on Vietnamese cuisine.

Peter Cuong Franklin is a Vietnamese American chef and founder of Anan Saigon in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Chôm Chôm in Hong Kong, specializing in "Cuisine Mới". Born in Da Lat, Vietnam, Franklin fled Ho Chi Minh City as a child refugee on April 29, 1975 during the Fall of Saigon. He was later adopted by an American family, attending Fairfield College Preparatory School and Yale University.

References

  1. ↑ Sesser, Stan (October 27, 2000). "Hanoi's Red Onion Bistro Has the Heart of San Francisco". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Retrieved March 8, 2021. ...Mr. Chinn is...[a]n American citizen...born in New Zealand...
  2. 1 2 "World Cafe 2".
  3. ↑ "Top Chef - MBC 1 - MBC.net".
  4. ↑ BigHospitality.co.uk. "Bobby Chinn heads to the UK for new Vietnamese restaurant in London".
  5. ↑ "Though part-Egyptian, chef Bobby Chinn avoids local cuisine in the kitchen". April 7, 2013.
  6. ↑ "A True Culinary Artisan". insight-egypt.com. Insight Egypt. Archived from the original on April 10, 2019. Retrieved April 10, 2019.
  7. ↑ "Bobby Chinn: What I Did Next". Podtail. Retrieved November 1, 2021.
  8. ↑ Heiter, Celeste. "The Pharaoh of Fine Dining in the Far East". Things Asian Press. Retrieved August 4, 2003.
  9. ↑ "The Urban School Alumni Association". Urban School Blue Notes. Retrieved February 24, 2017.
  10. ↑ Lippoldt, Karen, "From Wall Street to master chef: Bobby Chinn" Archived 19 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine , Richmond College Alumni news, October, 2013
  11. ↑ "HONORARY DEGREE RECIPIENTS". Richmond. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
  12. ↑ Post, The Jakarta. "Bobby Chinn: All grown up".
  13. ↑ "Culinary Escapades". Telegraph India. Retrieved November 21, 2010.
  14. ↑ "Chinn up!". BBC Good Food Middle East. Retrieved March 11, 2014.
  15. ↑ Heiter, Celeste (August 4, 2003). "The Pharaoh of Fine Dining in the Far East". thingsasian.com. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  16. ↑ "CNN - y: 'Hanoi Hilton' now holds only painful memories - April 27, 2000".
  17. ↑ "full biography". Deborah McKenna. Archived from the original on July 9, 2011. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
  18. ↑ "THE HISTORY OF THE 2i's COFFEE BAR". June 5, 2009.
  19. ↑ "Interview with: Celebrity Egyptian/Chinese Chef Bobby Chinn". ahramonline. April 20, 2013. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  20. ↑ "Bobby Chinn: Cooking's a gas - CNN.com". edition.cnn.com. Retrieved January 17, 2024.
  21. ↑ Ahmad, Tarek (September 19, 2016). "Top Chef Middle East set to dish up Arab talent". Al Arabiya English. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  22. ↑ "Top Chef Middle East – Season 5 – International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences" . Retrieved January 17, 2024.
  23. ↑ Bobby Chinn (2008). Wild, Wild East: Recipes & Stories from Vietnam. Barron's. ISBN   978-0-7641-6149-0.
  24. ↑ "Promoting sustainable seafood production". November 1, 2013.
  25. ↑ "Bobby Chinn named Vietnam tourism ambassador in Europe". July 18, 2014.
  26. ↑ "Bobby Chinn Goodwill Ambassador". Naomi Tami Memorial Fund. Naomi Tami Memorial Scholarship Fund. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.