At the Table with Chef Kevin Tien

Chef Kevin Tien is a renowned chef who has gained national attention and accolades for his restaurant, Hamitsu. He is passionate about giving back to his community and is involved with organizations like Share Our Strength and No Kid Hungry. Chef Kevin shares his childhood experiences with food, including growing up in a food-insecure household and relying on church and community support. He also discusses how becoming a dad has influenced his perspective on food and the importance of meal planning. Welcome to At The Table with Sarah and Julie. At The Table is a podcast by two pediatric registered dieticians and moms who love food and wine. We cover a wide range of topics with our goal to provide you with evidence-based insights but also to be a hub of true expert voices in the food and nutrition field. In this episode of At The Table, I sat down with Chef Kevin Tien. Originally from Lafayette, Louisiana, Chef Kevin Tien started working in the corporate world after receiving his master's degree in statistical analysis and business analytics from Louisiana State University. Early on, however, his passion for food and service led him to a career change which then placed him on a culinary path in 2009. After working with various restaurants in Louisiana, Texas and Washington DC, Chef Kevin had the opportunity to open his first restaurant Hamitsu. Since opening Hamitsu in 2016, Chef Kevin has garnered national attention and accolades from all corners of the United States. Bon Appetit named his intimate neighborhood eatery one of the best new restaurants in the country. Chef Kevin has been on Food & Wine magazine's Best New Chef list and has been a James Beard finalist. What is most inspirational about Chef Kevin is his passion to give back to his community. Chef Kevin has been involved with organizations like Share Our Strength and this year he was named No Kid Hungry's DC Chef Champion. I sat down with Chef Kevin today to talk about his upbringing with food, what it means to be a chef champion and how the birth of his son has shaped his food decisions both in his personal life and newest restaurant Moon Rabbit. Chef Kevin Tien, thank you so much for joining me at the table today. I'm very grateful to have you as one of our first guest chefs on our show. So welcome. Thanks. It's wonderful to be here Sarah. So today I want to go a little bit into a deep dive on your background, get a little bit of perspective as a chef and in your food world. So can you tell me a little bit about your childhood and your experiences with food? Yeah, I think growing up, food was very important to our family. It was like a big family gathering and everyone would come over to the house because my family were refugees in Vietnam. We made it a thing where all the aunts and uncles and cousins come over every like Sunday for us to be together. And that's when like a bunch of my family like live together. And then whenever my mom and I, my sister, we moved away and it was just us, we were actually a very like food insecure household. And we relied a lot on like churches, community and things like WIC to make sure that we have enough food in the house. And that's powerful because I don't think a lot of people realize how many families, especially families that immigrate into the U.S., have to go through that and that food insecurity. Do you mind talking a little bit more about that if that's okay? Yeah, absolutely. I think most people don't realize that there's more families that are food insecure than you think. And I think a lot of times it's hard to make sure you have enough food in the house because like fresh produce is like not necessarily cheap, right? Like I make a joke now because I'm a dad and my son like loves eating like fruit and berries. And I always say like the cost of fruit and berries is going to put us under. Oh, I know that as a parent too. That's interesting and you're right. Having small kids, that gives you a little bit of perspective of the challenges that it is, especially because you need to feed them for growth and nutrition and for them to develop. But when you go through those challenges, it's like how do you find that food? So I'm very intrigued by your background and seeing your career and how it's developed. So was there a specific food or experience that paved the road to becoming a chef as you were growing up? Single mom. So I was the oldest of the siblings. It was always my job to kind of cook for my sister and make sure she was fed before school and after school. Our family, we relied a lot on the reduced lunch at school, reduced or free lunch to make sure we ate. And then there are a lot of after-school programs. But really at my house, because we were so young, it was like anything microwaveable, so I didn't have to use an actual stove. Lots of sandwiches. And if I did ever use a stove, it was like making grilled cheese. Or like rice and eggs. There was always like a pot of rice and we always had like eggs. Then I went to college and working in restaurants like really paved my way through school. And then, you know, something that was a necessity became like more of a passion for me. So I decided to stay in the restaurant industry. That's wonderful. It's interesting how we all end up in the restaurant industry despite differing upbringings and backgrounds. You mentioned the reduced food lunches and nowadays there are movements to take that away from children. And you had to experience that and how powerful it is in order to be able to eat. What do you have to say beyond that experience in schools and the necessity for children to have access to the reduced or the free lunches at school? I think it's very important. You know, if they took that away, and I remember there's some days where like we, I couldn't get lunch, right? Because there was like a bill of like something stupid like 65 cents. We weren't allowed to like get lunch, which sounds like crazy, but that happens, right? And, you know, it can be very like isolating and to be like the only kid at school to not eat lunch. You have to like sit by yourself or like go find something to do or hide in the corner. And, you know, I think a lot of kids will sometimes like feel shame about it when they're not the ones that should be ashamed. It should be other people that have like failed these kids, like not giving them access, that should be the ones that should be ashamed, you know? It's true. And how does that impact your education and your learning? Because when you're hungry, you can't concentrate. So I'm sure that had to have some impact on how you felt at school too. Yeah, you know, like when you don't eat, you're like, how can you pay attention in class? How can you have the energy to do like PE or even like stay awake? After that, you know, your education gets affected. You're not doing well in school. And something so simple as like just a meal every day can like cause like someone to like really spiral and like not be the best student they can be. Food is our energy. Food is our nutrition. It's how we grow, develop, we learn. To me, it's very powerful to hear from you and your experience. And hopefully our listeners that go beyond just families can hear that impact and the importance of feeding kids and the school meals and really being a supportive community here in D.C. and in the U.S. So I want to talk about your heritage. We're celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. So this is something that I know that you are passionate about and I think we should all be very proud of. So let's talk about your Vietnamese roots and how they influenced you. Yeah, I was the first person in my family to be born in the U.S. I'm very lucky to be like Vietnamese and also like be American. So my perspective on food, I think it's like pretty cool. Growing up in like Louisiana, so like Vietnamese and like Cajun influence. So you'll see a lot of that growing up in the restaurant. And I would say growing up, we tried to be very American. And like, what does that mean? That means like we did a lot of barbecues and ate at McDonald's. Or like if we went to a restaurant, like, oh, let's go to hop back and get a steak, right? Like very American things. But also like that was what my the generation directly above me wanted to be like my mom, aunt and uncle. When we wanted to do like very traditional things, eat very traditional Vietnamese food. I was always like with my grandma and anyone and I was like the generation of like above them. And I'd say I grew up very American. And it wasn't until college and later on when I was older and I was like, well, I should like try to like read my Vietnamese roots a lot, you know, learn more about my family, my culture. But sometimes that's tough when your parents are like refugees or immigrants, right? Because they don't want to talk about these things or they're just trying to focus on the American dream. You know, it's still a process of learning about our family history. But, you know, I think as time goes on, my family's been sharing a lot more. And it's been like kind of really shaping the food that we're doing here at Moon Rabbit. I think that's beautiful that you're wanting to go back and learn those roots and bring it back because it's so important. I think having the different cultures, having the different languages, the different food is what makes it beautiful. Now, how has becoming a dad shaped your perspective on food so far? I would say, I mean, before we had a kid, I would eat a lot more unhealthy on my own. Not saying that I'm healthy now. I think there's definitely more fruits and vegetables in the house. You know, as someone who's in the restaurant industry, I know we all get breakfast. The first thing we do when he wakes up, I make sure at least he gets a good breakfast, right? So he can start his day. And when we do grocery shopping, you know, I always make sure he has everything he needs on the cart first for the week. And then it's like, all right, what am I eating the rest of the week? It's a lot of meal planning now. A lot of families really struggle with time. There's not enough time to work. Our lives have changed. I mean, now and what they were in like the 50s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, I think there was a lot more time spent in the house. But nowadays, like, everyone has to work longer and their work is coming home with them and the commute to work is longer. And there's less time in the kitchen at home, I would say, to be able to, like, make these big family dinners. Grocery shopping is very different. It's getting cream beans that are already snipped and that'll save me a little bit of time. It's like finding all these, like, local, like, really cool sauces that have already, like, awesome layers of flavor built in, like tiki masala, or like pasta sauce from Carbone's in New York. And then I'm, like, still cooking at the house and we get the shit I like cooking all the time, but I've spent a lot of the prep work. And that's smart. With Reed and I, we having two small kids, we know that struggle. And I don't know if you get asked this question a lot, but being a chef, I feel a lot of people, they're like, oh, so you must still cook a lot at home. You must still make everything so fresh. But the reality of having a child cooking is time consuming and children are time consuming and you need things at a certain time. So it's really nice to hear, like, how you are processing that, especially going to the grocery store and looking through those ingredients and how can you cut time. And we shop everything for our kids first. We make sure they eat all of the great foods first. And then we're like, OK, now what do we eat? Yeah, it's a lot of the leftovers of whatever he does finish. Yes, yes. I think that is a parent's meal. Yeah. So going back to your heritage, how does that play into being a dad and influencing how your son will eat and how you raise him? We're open five nights a week and I'm at the restaurant five nights, right? So I'm not necessarily at home cooking every night. So I spend a lot of my Monday doing like meal prep for the house. And then I get all the groceries, I put them in the fridge certain way. And I feel like this is like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday's meal. This is like how we're going to eat this week. And then on Sundays, because I am off the whole day and I don't want to cook, we go out and we travel to like either Eden Center or Rockville because my wife is white and I'm Vietnamese. So I really want him to be able to connect with like a lot of Vietnamese traditions as well. So a lot of the things we do is like very like Asian oriented, especially on Sundays. That's just like an important day. It's like Asian family day. Yeah, it's an important family day. And I think not just tradition, but getting that family time, too, which is so challenging in the restaurant industry to get that family time with your kids and to be able to sit at that table with them and eat and essentially model that behavior for them. Yeah, growing up, my mom's in restaurants, you know, a waitress or a hostess. And I remember I was always at work with her, right behind the counter or I was going to take a nap and be like, let me go sleep on a stack of rice in the back. And, you know, I was a restaurant kid and I liked it when like my son visits the restaurant, but I want him to like visit, have some food and say hi to all the staff and like play a little bit and go home. Yeah, I do agree with that. It's like we want them to be in the industry to see what you're doing so they can appreciate the hard work that goes into being a chef and working and owning a business. But at the same time, you also want them to be a kid and have their own space and you as well. So you talked about going out to eat and everything else. When he started eating more solid foods, how was your experience of introducing food to him? I think it's more fun for me than it is for him, because I'm always like looking for a reaction. And I was like, oh, let's see if he likes soy sauce or fish sauce or like, OK, here's like a lime that came with my dish. I was like, I'm going to have him chew on a lime. He's a very adventurous eater and he eats well. And I'm like really excited for that, especially as like a chef and dad. I was like, oh, my God, what am I going to do if my kids like picky? I think it's been fun for both of us to kind of see like what he likes and doesn't like. And it gives me a chance to like try different things as well. That's great. And that early introduction to kids, just exposing them to everything is fantastic. And it's funny because in my own personal experience, my daughter, who's my firstborn, was like that. She was very adventurous. She loves eating all kinds of food. And we really try to introduce her to world flavors. And we're still working with her on that. I'm like, OK, tonight we're going to go eat this kind of food. And she asked me, where is this from? And we try to talk about the culture and the heritage of the food. So she's very open. My son, on the other hand, and we tried the same techniques. He's like, no, I want bread. I want just pasta and bread. And I'm like, this hurts my soul. So what is like to be a chef and balance that restaurant, you know, now that you've become a dad to like be an owner, a chef, like, you know, the industry is already challenging. And then also being a dad. I think it's tough. You know, I would love to say like at some point in my career, I'll be able to spend like the evenings at home, but that's just like not in the cards right now. But, you know, when I am at home all day, Sunday and Monday nights, even if the time is like short and it's only like one and a half days with him, I make sure every like minute counts, all my attention is there, you know, and the whole day is all about him. So for me, I'm really focusing on like the quality of time instead of the quantity of time. And then in the mornings I get up and get ready for work, gets ready for daycare. So we make sure like the morning times are our times together, just kind of be in the moment in the moment and then just taking lots of photos. And, you know, I think for me, our restaurant, I've like brought like pieces, aspects of like his life into our restaurant. So if you ever got in the bar area and you see like these little framed art, that's actually his art from daycare. Lots of scribbles. There's some like paint slashing. But, you know, I think everyone's restaurants tell the story of the chef and, you know, and I wanted to make sure like our restaurant told the story of like Vietnamese food, but also like, hey, I'm like a new dad and this is something else that's very important to me. I think before being a parent, you're focusing on the career and the ownership, but it's interesting how it's affected your perspective on that. And when we first had kids before opening Schilling, we didn't think about the little details. And after we had my daughter, we were like, oh, no, we need a changing table. We need certain things like a high chair. Even if we're trying to be a different style of restaurant, we wanted to still be comfortable for families because we were experiencing the same thing. Yeah, absolutely. I'd like to think we're very family friendly. I would say like every evening we have at least two babies in the restaurant, which is like great to see. As a parent, I know because you're rushing out of the house and you like forget things for the baby. So we like carry sippy cups and like kids spoons and plates. We have high chairs. We have plates that like section cups to the table. In our bathroom, we stock baby wipes and diapers, butt cream. And we talked about how you guys made your restaurant very family friendly. And it was. Your staff was great. My wife and I celebrated our anniversary there with our baby. And he was only one years old and he had a great time. And the staff joked and played with him all night. And it was a great experience. You know, we were able to have a fine dining dinner to celebrate our anniversary. I'm very honored that you and your wife were able to come in and have that experience with us. So thank you. I know that sometimes it can be scary for families to take out their kids out to dinner, especially fine dining establishments or upscale restaurants. Should there be kids? I've heard people don't want to take kids because we don't want them to ruin the ambience. But at the same time, they're part of our life, our culture. And how are they supposed to learn about food and going out to eat if if we don't make that environment comfortable for them? What are your thoughts on that? I think it was like very taboo, maybe like back in the day. But, you know, I think a lot of people that own restaurants now, like our parents, like us, right. People that dine out are very different. There's a lot of families that love to dine out because of like what our shortage in time when we can't cook. So, you know, it's really us like being accommodating and having those families and creating that space where they can come in. You know, for example, like Chef Matt Adler at Caruso's. He's very focused on like child nutrition as well. And he like pounds out like kid sized pieces to do like chicken frittata and have like a very like chef drip like kids menu. And I think that's really amazing, you know, that he spends as much time on like kids food as he does adult food for his restaurant. That's fantastic. And I do agree. Sometimes we can have kids menus, but it's important to have them explore your menu. Right. Even if it's like a more of a kid driven one. But to put in that effort as a chef, I think that speaks to how our chefs these days are really not just running their businesses, but what our viewpoints are on family and having kids and bringing them in and making them part of the table. So in terms of cooking, do you think about nutrition when you're cooking? Does that influence you at all? I do. I pay a lot of attention to like sodium levels in business now. They're like added sugars and stuff. I've been like really focused on like finding ways of building a lot of flavor and using like things that are not like refined sugar. They're like a handful of salt. Can I use like miso in something or can I use soy? Can I use things that sweeten it like juice or agave instead? And then a lot of times I think when people grocery shop, I think everyone on their mind always says like fresh fruit is the most nutritious and fresh vegetables are the most nutritious. But honestly, frozen fruits and vegetables have the same nutritional value and you don't have to worry about like food waste, because a lot of times I know like when you go grocery shopping, you buy all this product and what 20 percent of it ends up in the trash anyways because of spoilage. So we focus on buying in like smaller batches like and then like we do a lot of like frozen fruit and like some frozen veggies that we can always like take out broccoli and cauliflower, carrots and stuff. I like that. And it's 100 percent true. There is the nutritional value of a lot of frozen fruits and vegetables are still as high as some of the seasonal and in season and fresh fruits and veggies. Like you said, it helps with food waste. It's also more economical. We're talking about families that need food, access to food. And I always talk as a dietician, like frozen foods and canned beans and some vegetables. Those are great, too. This should be something that we can promote. And how to cook and how to utilize them in your cooking and still make them delicious, right? Yep. Absolutely. I also want to congratulate you on being No Kid Hungry Chef's Champion this year. This is amazing. I'm very happy to see you be at that platform. I love No Kid Hungry. I've supported them for a long time. So congratulations. I think one of the things I get is outside of their mission, obviously their mission is like very important to No Kid Hungry and they focus on like lobbying and to make sure kids have access to like food at a young age. You know, it's very close to home for me. But I also know that the people who started No Kid Hungry, Debbie and her husband are like they're still involved in it themselves. And that shows a lot. Those who are still like just as passionate as they are every day, not just about the organization, but even about the chef community. They still go out and they dine at local chef's restaurants to support local business. And for me, that says a lot. It's phenomenal. And I think the organization stands for a lot of things. I mean, they're not just supporting chefs. They're helping school nutrition. They're helping kids that need food access. But they're also working on the policy side, which I think it's big because if we don't get somebody that is helping push those policies into the government, very little of what we do will actually be seen on the wider scale. So congratulations again on that honor. I'm excited to see you at that dinner. So I'm starting to see you on there too. Wonderful. Well, this has been an incredibly insightful conversation. I want to thank you again, Chef, for joining me. I'm very impressed with your career. I love talking to you about your transition to being a dad and how that's influenced you. Hopefully we can have another conversation down the road. But thank you again for being here today. Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. And obviously I love working with you, Marie. Thank you so much for joining us at the table. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, as well as on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. We are Sarah and Julie. Talk to you next time at the table.