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Kavita Daswani

Kathy Fang remembers standing on a little stool in the kitchen of her San Francisco home, learning to cook beside her grandmother.
“She taught me how to cook using a wok when I was very young,” says the chef. “The first dish I ever made was stir-fried Shanghai baby bok choi. There were no measurements – just instinct, tasting, adjusting.”
Those early lessons in intuition were reinforced daily in a very different kitchen: House of Nanking, the restaurant founded by her father, Peter Fang, nearly four decades ago, in North America’s oldest Chinatown.
Today, Peter Fang is regarded as a legend in San Francisco’s Chinese culinary world, known for building a fiercely individual restaurant, distinctive for its rainbow neon signage and unpretentious environment.
Kathy’s childhood unfolded amid shouted orders, flying plates and tightly packed tables.
“House of Nanking is very old school,” she says. “Loud, rambunctious, tiny, kind of like when you eat out in Hong Kong.”

The restaurant’s reputation spread largely by word of mouth. Diners trusted Peter to decide what they should eat. “People would ask, ‘What’s the recipe to this dish?’, or ‘Can you tell me the sauce for this?’” Kathy recalls. “They’d say, ‘This was the best Chinese I’ve ever had, I don’t know when I’m going to be able to come back to eat here.’”
Those requests planted a question that lingered for decades: “Why no cookbook?” Kathy asked her father repeatedly. “My dad always said no. He thought that if he shared his recipes, nobody would come to the restaurant. That’s kind of like that old immigrant way of thinking. And we were so busy. Writing a book takes a lot of effort.”
It was not until much later – after father and daughter appeared together in the Food Network docuseries Chef Dynasty: House of Fang – that Peter’s view shifted. Watching the show, he saw the restaurant as history rather than routine.
“He saw that we had a real record of what he had built,” Kathy says.

Peter finally agreed to do a cookbook – as long as he did not have to write it. So Kathy spent the next year “interviewing” her father for the content.
“We would take one day out of a week, between shifts, have lunch and just have conversations,” Kathy says.
For the first time, she asked her father about his childhood in Shanghai, his immigration to San Francisco in 1980 with his wife, Lily, and the origins of the restaurant, which the couple opened in 1988.
“Believe it or not, even though I’ve been there all my life, we never talked about how the restaurant came to be,” Kathy says. “From the logo to the dishes – we never talked about it.”
The resulting cookbook, House of Nanking, was released in September 2025. It contains more than 100 recipes divided between the restaurant’s most popular dishes and the food of Kathy’s upbringing. Included are recipes for the restaurant’s sought-after chicken in Tsingtao beer sauce and pan-fried vegetarian buns with peanut sauce.

The other half of the book reflects a childhood shaped by extended family. Kathy’s paternal grandmother, especially, was an exceptional cook, and many of the restaurant’s signature dishes are derived from her home cooking.
“All my relatives took turns taking care of me while my parents were working at the restaurant every day,” Kathy says. “Each relative cooked differently, and so I wanted to talk about these people and share a sliver of their personality and the dishes they made that I loved.”
The book exceeded expectations, selling out on Amazon before Christmas and making the “best of” lists on food media platforms such as Chowhound and Eater.
Despite growing up in a restaurant, Kathy was not expected to head into the family business.
“My parents wanted me to be a doctor, lawyer or work a corporate job,” she says. She tried that path, working at Merrill Lynch and Johnson & Johnson. “I realised something was wrong when the highlight of my month was receiving a bag of defective Neutrogena products, just so I could give them away.”

When she returned home to work with her parents, her father tested her resolve. “My dad is very demanding,” she says. “If he didn’t think I was capable, he wouldn’t have let me continue.”
Eventually, he supported her decision to become a professional chef; Kathy attended Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Los Angeles and went on to twice win Food Network’s Chopped reality television series.
In 2009, the father and daughter opened Fang Restaurant in the trendy South of Market, or SoMa, district of San Francisco. It is more spacious, more modern, has a bar and regularly hosts private events.
“We didn’t want the two restaurants to be interchangeable,” she says. “We wanted them to complement each other.”

At home, however, Kathy cooks neither restaurant food nor anything elaborate. “For my family, I like to make the food I grew up with – bone broths, soups, leafy greens, steamed proteins,” she says. “I light incense, make soup once or twice a week, and that sustains us.”
It is the food she returns to instinctively. “It’s grounding and comforting,” Kathy says. “And I want my kids to grow up with that feeling of home.”


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Food and Drinks

Famous San Francisco Chinatown restaurant House of Nanking gets its own cookbook

Kathy Fang grew up in her father’s restaurant, House of Nanking in San Francisco’s Chinatown, which opened in 1988. Together with her father, Peter Fang, she has released a cookbook featuring recipes from the restaurant and from her childhood. Photo: Moanalani Jeffrey

Peter Fang is regarded as a legend in San Francisco’s Chinese culinary world. Photo: Instagram/houseofnankingsf

The cover of Kathy and Peter Fang’s cookbook, House of Nanking. Photo: Quentin Bacon

Chicken in Tsingtao beer sauce is a House of Nanking signature. Photo: Instagram/houseofnankingsf

Kathy Fang worked at Merrill Lynch and Johnson & Johnson before she returned home to work with her parents. Photo: Moanalani Jeffrey

A selection of dishes from House of Nanking, including sesame noodles (top), steamed pork dumplings (left, centre) and crispy honey beef with bak choi (bottom right). Photo: Instagram/houseofnankingsf

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Chinese dumplings served with chilli oil. Photo: asiastreetfood.com/dpa-tmn

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San Ieng Kei cooks its pork chops over a charcoal grill. Photo: courtesy of San Ieng Kei

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Lifestyle

Food & Drink

Kathy and Peter Fang’s cookbook is full of recipes of House of Nanking’s most popular dishes and others from Kathy’s childhood


Kathy and Peter Fang’s cookbook is full of recipes of House of Nanking’s most popular dishes and others from Kathy’s childhood.


Asian diaspora

Chinese culture

Chinese cuisine

United States

Famous San Francisco Chinatown restaurant House of Nanking gets its own cookbook

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Kathy and Peter Fang’s cookbook is full of recipes of House of Nanking’s most popular dishes and others from Kathy’s childhood

Kathy and Peter Fang’s cookbook is full of recipes of House of Nanking’s most popular dishes and others from Kathy’s childhood