About Chef Tu David Phu

Chef Tu’s Vietnamese-California cuisine began garnering press and accolades, first in 2016 with his weekly pop up dinners “AN – a Vietnamese Dining Experience.”; then in 2017 San Francisco Chronicle named him Rising Star Chef. In 2019, he was a featured contestant on Bravo’s Top Chef Season 15 and invited to host ABC’s Taste Buds: Chefsgiving which was nominated for a James Beard Award. 

As a first-generation, Vietnamese-American, food justice comes naturally to Chef Tu, who finds opportunities to use the medium of food as a vessel for meaningful work from cooking with incarcerated men in San Quentin; to being a community ambassador in Oakland working with Asian Health Services and the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. Tu’s involvement with food recovery and the Zero-Waste Movement is something else he got from his mother: During the Vietnam War, when supplies were rationed, she learned, out of necessity, that corn silk could be dried and used as tea or toasted, deep-fried, or sautéed to serve with rice. Chef Tu not only applies these Zero Waste principles in his own kitchen, he is a James Beard Smart Catch Leader, recognized for promoting the use of sustainable seafood options; and an avid teacher, sharing the riches and lessons of his birthright through food.