Name Michelle Mah | Role Chef | |
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Education California Culinary Academy, University of California, San Diego | ||
Kirti pant eric gower michelle mah signature dishes
Michelle Mah is the current chef de cuisine for The Slanted Door in San Francisco, California. She has held executive chef positions at prominent San Francisco restaurants with featured recipes.
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Biography
Michelle Mah was born in 1975 Seoul, Korea. Mah spend her childhood in Korea until her family immigrated to Southern California at the age of three. Both her mother and grandmother were cooks, and her father also cooked Korean dishes at home. Before advancing her culinary education, Mah graduated from the University of California in San Diego in 1997 with a Bachelor's degree in Ethnic Studies and a minor in General Literature.
Mah’s culinary experience began at Café Japengo in San Diego with guidance from chef Amiko Gubbins. She enrolled in the College of Food in San Diego where she graduated with an Associate degree in Occupational Studies, and furthered her education at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. Mah’s experience in San Francisco kitchens began at Moose’s as a pantry cook, and later completed her externship from CCA at the Turtle Bay Resort in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Upon returning to California, Mah cooked alongside Paul Arenstam at Belon as a sous chef, as well as Grand Cafe in San Francisco.
In 2005 Mah stepped in to captain Kimpton's Ponzu restaurant and was named one of San Francisco Chronicle's "Rising Star Chefs" of 2006 along with Corey Lee of French Laundry and Mike Yakura of Le Colonial. Ponzu is a restaurant which serves upscale Asian cuisine and Mah served as the executive chef and the pastry chef. Mah told Nation's Restaurant News that she studied and researched different recipes before she felt comfortable developing her own vision for Ponzu which incorporated some Korean cuisine. The Today Show described her approach to Asian cuisine as "Asia without a map."
In 2008, she left Ponzu to join Midi restaurant which opened in the Galleria Park Hotel in San Francisco, where she worked as the executive chef. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that Mah's recipes at the restaurant, this time based on European cuisine, "creates a fantasy voyage." In 2010, Mah left Midi, hoping to start working at an independent or her own restaurant.
Mah started working at the Brixton in 2010. In 2011, Mah joined Charles Phan’s Slanted Door Group to head up Wo Hing’s General Store, a Southern Chinese street food inspired restaurant. In 2012, she transferred over to The Slanted Door, where she heads the kitchen.
Mah was part of an event in coordination with the Asian Art Museum when the "meat shaped stone" was on display in 2016. Chefs, including Mah, created unique pork-belly recipes at their restaurants.