Joanne Chang
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1971 (age 54–55)
Joanne Chang | |
|---|---|
| Born | Joanne Chang 1971 (age 54–55) Houston, Texas, U.S |
| Education | Harvard University (AB) |
| Occupations | Chef, restaurateur |
| Spouse | Christopher Myers (m. 2007) |
| Culinary career | |
| Cooking style | Chinese, pastry |
Current restaurant(s)
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Award(s) won
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Joanne Chang (born in Houston, Texas) is an American chef and restaurateur. She is the owner of Flour Bakery[1] in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts and is a James Beard Foundation Award winner for Outstanding Baker, 2016.
Chang's parents were immigrants who met while studying in Houston.[2] She was born in Houston circa 1971.[3] As a child, she grew up in Oklahoma and Texas[2] and enjoyed cooking and baking.[4] After graduating as valedictorian of her high school class, Chang attended Harvard University, where she studied astrophysics before switching to applied mathematics. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics and economics in 1991.[2][5][6][7]
Career
After graduation, Chang worked as a management consultant at the Monitor Group in Cambridge.[2] While working at the company, she created a business plan for a company called Joanne's Kitchen and prepared cakes and cookies for her co-workers.[2] After two years as a consultant, Chang realized that consulting was not the best career for her.[8] She applied for work as a chef,[2] despite having limited culinary experience.[9]
Chang began her professional cooking career as a garde-manger cook at Boston's Biba restaurant,[2] followed by stints as the pastry cook at Bentonwood Bakery in Newton, and in 1995, the pastry chef at Rialto restaurant in Cambridge.[10] In 1997, she began working at the cake department of Payard Patisserie in New York City.[11][12] Chang stated she worked from "4 a.m. to midnight, six days a week".[6] Returning to Boston a year later with plans to open a pastry shop, she worked as a pastry chef at Mistral until the summer of 2000.[13] In 2007 she won an episode of Beat Bobby Flay with her recipe for sticky buns.[14][15] In 2021 she was a judge on Baking Impossible, a cooking competition show on Netflix.[16][17]
She has taught cooking classes.[18] She contributed to the cookbook Rebel Girls Make Dessert (2025).[19]
Restaurants
Recognition
Chang was the James Beard Foundation 2016 Outstanding Baker.[21] She had been a finalist for an award in five previous years.[22]
Cookbooks
- Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe (2010)[23][5]
- Flour Too: Indispensable Recipes for the Café's Most Loved Sweets & Savories (2013)[5][24]
- Baking with Less Sugar: Recipes for Dessert using Natural Sweeteners and Little-to-No White Sugar (2015)[5][25]
- Myers+Chang at Home (2017)[26]
- Pastry Love: A Baker's Journal of Favorite Recipes (2019)[27][28]
