Chef Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese: "we're living in a post-authentic world"

Award-winning chef Danny Bowien has never fully fit in. Adopted from Korea, Bowien was raised by a white, Christian family in Oklahoma, in "the buckle of the Bible Belt." In 2010, as a young chef in San Francisco, he started the first pop up restaurant ever as an experiment – it became wildly popular for turning Szechuan Chinese food upside down. He now runs two successful Mission Chinese restaurants in New York.

Bowien is known in the food world for subverting not just Chinese cuisine, but also what chefs should look like and the rules they should follow. He speaks with Lilah about why authenticity is no longer the benchmark for good food, what it has been like to publicly fail, and how a restaurant becomes an institution.

Also: we want to hear your stories about astrology! Do you have a memorable experience to share with us? When do you turn to it? And if you're a skeptic, what doesn't sit right? Record an audio message with your thoughts, and email it to culturecall@ft.com. You can also chat with us on Twitter @FTCultureCall.

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Links from the episode:

–Patricia Lockwood's hilarious essay on John Updike in the London Review of Books https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n19/patricia-lockwood/malfunctioning-sex-robot

–Tickets to the FT's NextGen festival, in London on November 16 (where you can hang out with Gris!): https://www.ftnextgen.com/

–Danny Bowien's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dannybowienchinesefood

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