Diep Tran

Experience

Diep Tran comes from a family of cooks who founded the Pho 79 chain of Vietnamese noodle shops after emigrating to the U.S. She grew up helping her grandmother in the kitchen preparing traditional regional Vietnamese food, though she attributes the film Babette's Feast as one of her early culinary inspirations. Diep worked for nonprofits for several years after college before opening her first restaurant Blue Hen. She spent a couple of years doing pop-up "Good Girl suppers" after selling Blue Hen, where developed and refined her concept before opening her popular Dinette in Highland Park. Diep has appeared in the Netflix series Ugly Delicious, KCET's Migrant Kitchen, and HBO Max’s Take Out with Lisa Ling. An advocate for worker rights and equity in the restaurant industry, she founded the Banh Chung Collective, a nationwide community of women, LGBTQIA, and people of color forging bonds over the making of the Lunar New Year banana leaf-wrapped sticky rice dumpling. Diep currently serves as the recipe development chef at Red Boat Fish Sauce.