Cecilia Chiang was a chef and businesswoman who owned Mandarin Restaurants in Beverly Hills and San Francisco. Born in Wuxi, China, in 1920, she studied Chinese literature at a Catholic university in Beijing, but soon left for the free territory of Chongqing following the Japanese occupation in 1937. After several years in Japan with her husband, she moved to the United States in 1957 and established the first Mandarin Restaurant in San Francisco, garnering enough success to open a second restaurant in Beverly Hills in 1975. Over a forty-year period, she educated American palates to fine Chinese cuisine, served as a consultant to new restaurants, and mentored many of the early Bay Area food pioneers through her cooking classes. In this interview, Chiang discusses her early life in China, the importance of food and cooking, and the growth of Mandarin Restaurants into a culinary hotspot.