Nguyen Tran
Starry Kitchen
Nguyen Tran and his chef wife, Thi Tran, co-founded Starry Kitchen, a casual and fun-loving pan-Asian restaurant that began in 2009 as an illegal underground operation running of out of their North Hollywood apartment.
Their apartment (yes, their apartment) quickly rose to the #1 Asian Fusion dining spot in the city on Yelp, and gained a loyal fan base that has followed them on their culinary adventures all over LA including their most recent spot it in Echo Park- Asian Restaurant Barcade, Button Mash. Their story has been told in The New Yorker, New York Times, LA Times, NPR, Food Network, Cooking Channel and in his memoir/cookbook “Adventures in Starry Kitchen: 88 Asian-Inspired Recipes from America’s Most Famous Underground Restaurant ” which was published last year by Harper Collins.
Nguyen also appears on television as a judge and personality from time-to time (Chopped Jr, Beat Bobby Flay, Food: Fact or Fiction)… Oh, and he’s fairly infamous for leisurely wearing a banana suit around town and at tasting events all over the city, including just about every year of the LA Food Fest!