Hannah Che

Che was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan,^[1] to immigrant parents from China.^[2][3] When she was 9, her father's work took them to Shenzhen, China for three years before returning to the United States.^[3] She trained as a pianist at Shepherd School of Music, Rice University, receiving both a B.M. and M.M.^[1] She is also a graduate of the Guangzhou Vegetarian Culinary School in China, where she studied vegetarian cooking.^[4]

Che states that after reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, she "chose to shift to plant-based eating for health, environmental, and ethical reasons."^[5] She then began to study "other culinary traditions, like plant-based Thai and Mediterranean cuisine."^[5] She states that she learned that "plant-based eating is a long-standing tradition in Chinese cuisine."^[5][6]

She created the recipe blog, "The Plant-Based Wok," and began working in restaurants.^[7] She worked as a cook in American Michelin-starred restaurants, was a wok chef at Din Tai Fung, and developed "a vegan Chinese tasting menu pop-up called Surong" in Portland, Oregon. She currently lives in Dali, Yunnan, China.^[4]

The New York Times and The Washington Post named her first cookbook, The Vegan Chinese Kitchen (2022), one of the Best Cookbooks of 2022,^[8][9] and the Food Network listed it as one of the “10 Best New Vegan Cookbooks” for 2023.^[10] VegNews listed it as one of the "Top 100 Vegan Cookbooks of All Time" in 2024.^[11]

It won the 2023 James Beard Foundation Award^[12] and 2023 International Association of Culinary Professionals Julia Child First Book Award.^[13]

• The Vegan Chinese Kitchen. Clarkson Potter, 2022. ISBN 978-0593139707.