Asian food has long been present in the United States, and the diverse cuisines of the world’s most populous continent have never felt more celebrated.
The word “umami” has become part of the everyday lexicon, Asian ingredients are readily incorporated in American-made grocery store products — from lime-yuzu drink mixers to ube cookies with distinctive purple icing — and Japanese-influenced restaurants lead metro Atlanta’s dining scene in accolades such as Michelin stars.
Ron Hsu, culinary director and co-owner of Lazy Betty, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he’s seen the metro area evolve quite a bit since his childhood days in Stockbridge. When he grew up in the 1980s and ’90s, people occasionally found his Chinese heritage confusing.
Credit: Yvonne Zusel
Credit: Yvonne Zusel
“I think I was in one of two Asian families in Henry County,” Hsu said. “People would say, ‘You’re not Black and you’re not white; are you Mexican?’”
As he has moved through his culinary career in New York and Atlanta, Hsu said he hasn’t heard that line of questioning in a long time. Over the decades, his Chinese heritage became familiar to people, “and I would think the same thing would happen with food,” Hsu said.
The Atlanta region is home to more 300,000 people who identify as Asian, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission, which considers 11 counties for its statistics. Since 2000, the population in metro Atlanta’s five core counties (Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett) has nearly tripled, ARC’s data shows.
Credit: Ron Hsu
Credit: Ron Hsu
In Henry, the county where Hsu grew up, the Asian population increased sevenfold, from half a percent in 1990 to nearly 3.5% in 2020.
About a third of Georgia’s booming Asian population comes from India, according to the ARC data, followed by Vietnam, China and Korea at about 15% each. Atlanta ranks among the top 10 metro areas in the U.S. for both Vietnamese and Korean populations, per the Pew Research Center.
These demographics have created a diverse, thriving Asian restaurant scene along Buford Highway, which has been well-documented, and in Gwinnett, the county with Georgia’s highest concentration of Asian residents.
Credit: CHRIS HUNT
Credit: CHRIS HUNT
According to Jane Ewe, general manager of the Sweet Hut chain of bakeries, the diversity among Atlanta’s Asian population is advantageous for the food scene.
She pointed out that, with so many cultures and cuisines represented, more Asian grocery stores and retailers have opened in the past decade, like Teso Life, which attracted thousands of patrons eager to purchase hard-to-find Asian goods when it opened in Duluth in 2023. Ewe also noted increased competition, especially in Sweet Hut’s realm of baked goods and bubble tea, which drives her business and others to remain sharp.
Asian influences have spread beyond their main cultural centers, reaching into Atlanta’s fine dining restaurants.
Brian So, the Korean American chef and co-owner of Spring in Marietta, often incorporates Asian ingredients and techniques into his menu.
Credit: Yvonne Zusel
Credit: Yvonne Zusel
“I would say we have some Asian influence on the Spring menu,” So told the AJC. “At all times there’s a few things, but it’s never very ‘in-your-face.’ It’s always kind of a very indirect influence.”
He described a dish that used a Chinese technique for blooming spices in hot oil to create a chili oil, but he flavors the oil with local aromatics rather than Asian spices. He also likes using produce such as Korean cucumbers and Chinese broccoli without necessarily adding Asian flavors.
So said he makes these choices naturally in his creative process, not because he follows any philosophy that would require him to reference Asian cuisine.
Hsu echoed that stance and said Asian elements are often included on the Lazy Betty menu, but only because they fit within the vision for a particular dish. In the restaurant’s first iteration, Hsu said they used a wok to prepare a few dishes.
Hsu grew up in the kitchen of his mother’s Chinese restaurant and said he sometimes fuses Southern and Chinese cuisines at Lazy Betty.
“At one point, we had what we dubbed a lotus flower dumpling, which was my evolved version of a steamed dumpling that we paired with a shiitake mushroom and foie gras broth,” Hsu said. “That was kind of my version of a Southern-style chicken and dumplings.”
Both So and Hsu said they were glad to see the strides made in recognizing the diverse cuisines of Asia, leaving behind the days when Eastern cultures were labeled “Oriental” or “exotic.” But both chefs said there is plenty more work to be done.
Hsu and So said that Japanese food has cultivated a perception of high quality among diners, while Chinese, Indian and Vietnamese food are often perceived as inexpensive takeout options. So lamented that grilled beef and Korean barbecue have pushed aside all other forms of Korean cooking.
“Eating beef barbecue, that’s usually on a corporate credit card or for a special occasion,” So said. “That’s not what Koreans eat every day.”
Ewe, whose family also operates Food Terminal’s four metro area locations, said she appreciated how a certain dish could help put a country’s cuisine on the map.
Credit: CHRIS HUNT
Credit: CHRIS HUNT
“I think it’s very hard for people from outside the culture to know all these nuances,” Ewe said, speaking about the wide variety of dishes served at her family’s Malaysian restaurants. “If they’re ever interested to know more … they can explore things other than this one dish, like Hainanese chicken or whatever.”
Ewe has noticed diners displaying a higher level of knowledge about Asian cuisine in recent years. Growing up in Johns Creek, she said people were rarely familiar with the gastronomy of her family’s home country of Malaysia.
“But now we’ll have conversations with people that want a specific Cambodian dish,” she said.
Hsu said he feels a “civic duty” to continue changing public perception of Asian food in America. He imagines a restaurant serving high-level versions of the Chinese food of his childhood that would help the cuisine shed its reputation as an inexpensive takeout option.
“I would love to do a Chinese American restaurant,” Hsu said, though he worries the economics would make it difficult to succeed. “I think you could do it. … It’s just a harder equation to figure out.”
It’s a math problem So is trying to work out in real time as he develops his next concept, a traditional Korean restaurant called Spring 2nd Branch. The new restaurant will be more casual than Spring, a destination for fine dining that last fall became the first restaurant outside the Perimeter to earn a Michelin star.
So hopes the new restaurant can help expand the public’s understanding of Korean food beyond tabletop barbecue. He wants to see more specific Asian cuisines break out of the cycle of trends and become accepted on a more permanent basis.
“The space for Asian food seems so trend-driven — like, ‘Oh, Thai food is hot right now,’” So said. “It’s never more than one at a time. It’s never all (Asian food) together.”
“Italian food is always there,” So continued. “In certain cities, French food is always there. Japanese food has probably made its way into that realm where it’s just always there. I just wish that kind of stability would reach into the lesser-known Asian cuisines.”
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