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Christina Nguyen

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EducationSelf-taught
Yearsactive2014–present
SpouseBirk Grudem
Cooking styleVenezuelan street food, Southeast Asian street food
Christina Nguyen
EducationSelf-taught
Years active2014–present
SpouseBirk Grudem
Culinary career
Cooking styleVenezuelan street food, Southeast Asian street food
Current restaurant(s)
    • Hola Arepa, Minneapolis (2014–present)
    • Hai Hai, Minneapolis (2018–present)
Award(s) won

Christina Nguyen is an American chef and restaurateur. In 2024, she won the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Midwest.

Nguyen's parents, who both grew up in Saigon, Vietnam, immigrated separately in 1975 to the United States as refugees.[1][2][3] They met as students at the University of Minnesota.[3] Nguyen has a brother.[3]

Nguyen is self-taught.[1][2]

Career

Nguyen opened a food truck, Hola Arepa, in 2014.[2] She opened a bricks-and-mortar restaurant also called Hola Arepa, which serves Venezuelan street food, in Minneapolis.[1][4]

Nguyen opened Hai Hai in Minneapolis, which serves Southeast Asian street foods, in the late 2010s.[1][5] The restaurant had previously been a night club.[6][3] National Geographic said it had 'rocketed to prominence as a "new-school” Asian-inspired restaurant. Its menu is almost entirely unlike any of its peers—it’s filled with under-the-radar dishes you can’t order anywhere else, and evolves constantly'.[7]

Recognition

Personal life

References

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