Ming Tsai | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1964 (age 60–61)[1] |
| Education | Yale University Cornell University Le Cordon Bleu |
| Spouse | Polly Talbott-Tsai |
| Children | 2 |
| Culinary career | |
| Cooking style | Fusion |
Previous restaurant(s)
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Television show(s)
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Ming Hao Tsai (Chinese:蔡明昊;pinyin:Cài Mínghào; born 1964) is an American chef,restaurateur,television personality and a former squash player. Tsai's restaurants have focused on east–westfusion cuisine, and have included major stakes in Blue Ginger inWellesley, Massachusetts (aZagat- andJames Beard-recognized establishment) from 1998 to 2017, and Blue Dragon in theFort Point Channel area ofBoston (a Zagat-recognized tapas-style gastropub named inEsquire Magazine "Best New Restaurants 2013").
Tsai hostsSimply Ming, a cooking show featured onAmerican Public Television, in its seventeenth season. Past shows Tsai hosted includeMing's Quest, a cooking show featured on theFine Living Network, andEast Meets West. Tsai appeared in theFood Network cooking competitionThe Next Iron Chef (2010).[2][3]
Tsai was born to Iris (née Lee), who owned a Chinese restaurant, andStephen Tsai [de], an engineer who co-developed theTsai-Wu failure criterion,[4] and was raised inDayton, Ohio,[5][4] where he attendedThe Miami Valley School.[6] He assisted with the cooking as he was growing up in the restaurant, Mandarin Kitchen.[4] Tsai's maternal grandparents emigrated to Dayton from Taiwan after escaping China during theCultural Revolution.[7]
Tsai later attendedPhillips Academy inAndover, Massachusetts, and then proceeded to study engineering and play varsitysquash at Yale University.[4][5] There, he was a member of the Phi chapter of theDelta Kappa Epsilon fraternity,[8] and graduated with a degree inmechanical engineering in 1986.[4][5] He received amaster's degree inhotel administration and hospitality marketing fromCornell University in 1989.[9] Either the summer after his sophomore or junior year at Yale, he attended culinary school atLe Cordon Bleu in Paris.[4][5] Tsai speaks four languages: English, Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish.[10]
Tsai is a grandson of ChinesecomposerLee Pao-Chen [zh].[11] He is a 116th great grandson ofHuang Di.[7][1]
Tsai began his television career on chefSara Moulton's cooking showCooking Live while she had him fill in for one week for her in 1997.[12] He hostedEast Meets West on the Food Network from 1998 to 2003.[13] He hostsSimply Ming, a food show on PBS.[13]
In 2005, he was a judge on the PBS showCooking Under Fire.[14] Ming Tsai challenged Iron Chef Bobby Flay in the sixth episode of season one ofIron Chef America in 2005; Tsai defeated Flay. Tsai was a contestant inThe Next Iron Chef in 2010, where he was eliminated in the seventh week.[3][2] Tsai appeared on an episode ofTop Chef in 2014.[15]
His other television appearances include participation in a Zoom Out onZoom, a show distributed byPBS, in 2005[16] and on the PBS children's television showArthur episode in 2006.
In 1998, Tsai and Polly Talbott opened his first restaurant, Blue Ginger, inWellesley, Massachusetts. Blue Ginger, an Asian Fusion restaurant,[13] has become aZagat[17] andJames Beard-recognized establishment,[18][19] winning many other regional awards as well.[20] The year that the restaurant opened, Tsai was named "Chef of the Year" byEsquire Magazine.[21] On March 30, 2010 Tsai opened Blue Ginger Noodle Bar, a mini-restaurant, inside Blue Ginger.[22] In June 2017, Tsai closed Blue Ginger after 19 years of business. The reason was due to the end of alease and Tsai's focus on a newfast-casual stir-fry concept restaurant, ChowStirs, scheduled to open in Boston during the early part of 2018.[20]
Tsai opened Blue Dragon in 2013 in theFort Point Channel area ofBoston, an east–west tapas-style gastropub that has become a Zagat's recognized restaurant,[23] which was named anEsquire Magazine "Best New Restaurant" in its opening year.[24] Blue Dragon closed in March 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic.[25]
In 2020, Tsai opened BāBā at the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Montana as chef and partner.[26]
Tsai is the author of fivecookbooks:Blue Ginger,Simply Ming,Ming's Master Recipes,Simply Ming: One-Pot Meals,[19] andSimply Ming in Your Kitchen.[18]
Tsai won theDaytime Emmy award in 1999, in the category Outstanding Service Show Host.[27] Tsai's Blue Ginger Restaurant was inducted into theCulinary Hall of Fame in 2012.[28] In 2000, Ming was on the 50 Most Beautiful People list published byPeople magazine.[29]
Tsai and Polly Talbott have been married since April 1996. They have two sons, David and Henry.[30] David Talbott, Tsai's squash coach at Yale, andMark Talbott, a former World No. 1hardball squash player, are Tsai's brothers-in-law.[30]Lauren Tsai, the American actress, is his niece.[31] According toHenry Louis Gates's PBS programFinding Your Roots, Tsai is a 116th-generation descendant ofQin Shi Huang (259 BC – 210 BC),[32] founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China.
Tsai was asquash player atYale, playing number two for the team, and he was named as an All-Ivy League player in 1986.[33] While attending culinary school in France, Tsai played professionally on the European circuit.[34] In 2004, Tsai played a celebrity squash match against professional golferBrad Faxon at a Boston squash club.[35] In 2005, he played against Mark Talbott in a charity match at a squash club in San Francisco.[citation needed]
One of Tsai's sons has food allergies, and Tsai has become a food allergy advocate who promotes awareness of food allergens.[20] Since 2005,[36] he has been a national spokesman for the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) and in December 2012 was awarded a lifetime achievement award for his advocacy work from the organization, including his work on the state of Massachusetts food safety bill.[37] Tsai was heavily featured on Season 1, Episode 5 of Netflix’s “Rotten” discussing his thoughts and observations on the restaurant industry; specifically about food-allergic individuals being able to dine out safely. Tsai is currently the President of the National Advisory Board for Family Reach, an organization that provides a financial lifeline to families fighting cancer.
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(July 2024) |
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Famous chef, Ming Tsai, is a Deke. Brother Ming Tsai is a Yale Deke who has earned an Emmy award for this culinary influence on television. Ming's TV series, 'Simply Ming', is known for his fusion of eastern and western flavours...
Sara Moulton: 'I like to say that he was discovered on my Food Network show,Cooking Live, because he filled in for me for 1 week in 1997 when I was on vacation and then promptly got his own show, "East Meets West."'
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