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TikTok chef whips up in real Los Angeles restaurant after virtual success
Tue Nguyen became a Tiktok star by publishing videos of itself that made Vietnamese dishes during the pandemic, and now she has her own restaurant in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles, California – Tis nguyen became one Tiktok Star by publishing videos of itself that made Vietnamese dishes during the pandemic.
Chef Tue Nguyen presents a bowl with its Di Di -roasted rice at his first restaurant in Los Angeles, California. © Frederic J. Brown / AFP
With Lockdowns over, the young chef has jumped from the virtual to the real world to open her first restaurant Near Los Angeles.
“I think it has always been like a dream,” Nguyen (25) recently told AFP at Di Di, her restaurant in the lively suburb of West Hollywood.
“But … I honestly didn’t know it would come so fast.”
Nguyen went to culinary school to learn the basics of the craft, but says that she really mastered gastronomy when she knocked on her inheritance.
“I really didn’t learn to cook until … I really looked back on what I was growing up with. And that’s the taste of my mom’s cooking.”
Nguyen, who immigrated to the United States from Vietnam with her family as a child, credits her mother and stepfather as her main impact in the kitchen.
“They remind me every time I’m in the kitchen to cook, to make good food and trust your taste,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen used tiktok to “find my taste in the kitchen”
Tue Nguyen became a Tiktok star with Vietnamese culinary videos during the Coronavirus pandemic. © Robyn Beck / AFP
Nguyen, who is known on social media like @twaydabae, first began posting mukbangs or videos where people live stream themselves eat.
But it was her cooking videos that made her really popular on platforms like Tiktok.
Nguyen started posting on social media just for fun, but she quickly saw that people had appetite not only to eat but also to learn to recreate the food themselves.
“And it was when I realized okay … I will take the opportunity as a way for me not only to learn but also develop as my cooking … and find my taste in the kitchen.”
Unlike other chefs that rise to restaurant families before becoming media celebrities, the Nguy tried the opposite approach and began to bring her online dishes to the real world in pop-up restaurant places.
The place for her first appearance is where she later opened Di Di.
With hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, Youtube and Tiktok and millions of likes on her videos, Nguyen does not believe to share her recipes with the world will hurt her restaurant business.
“Many times my recipes online are very easy to follow,” Nguyen said.
“Here,” Nguyen said of Di Di, “It’s more polished.”
“My story, my heart”
Chef Tue Nguyen shows her of fried rice and beef carpaccio outside her West Hollywood restaurant, Di Di. © Frederic J. Brown / AFP
Filled with huge armchairs and golden lamps and decorated with tropical plants, opened the Vietnamese phrase for “Let’s go” – its doors on Thursday.
Nguyen, who takes care of every detail at DI, describes her cooking style as a mixture of the techniques she learned in culinary school and the taste of her mother’s cooking that she grew up with.
Nguyen hopes that this personal brand will help her succeed in the competitive Los Angeles gastronomic scene.
“I have my story. I have my heart. That’s really what makes this place special,” she says.
“This restaurant is about just celebrating the culture that raised me and a picture I’m really proud of.”
Cover Photo: Collage: Robyn Beck / AFP & Frederic J. Brown / AFP
