Cecilia Chiang

Cecilia Chiang

Cecilia Sun Yun Chiang (September 18, 1920 – October 28, 2020) was a Chinese-American restaurateur and chef. She is best known for founding and managing the Mandarin restaurant in San Francisco, California. She was a spy for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War.

About Cecilia Chiang in brief

Summary Cecilia ChiangCecilia Sun Yun Chiang (September 18, 1920 – October 28, 2020) was a Chinese-American restaurateur and chef. She is best known for founding and managing the Mandarin restaurant in San Francisco, California. Chiang is often credited with having introduced San Francisco and the United States to a more authentic version of Northern Chinese cuisine. She died of cancer in California in 2020, aged 98. She was a spy for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War. She and her husband escaped from China on the last flight from Shanghai during the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949. She opened a Chinese restaurant, Forbidden City, which was successful with expatriates and local diners. In 1968 she relocated the restaurant to a 300-seat location in Ghelli Square, which required a multimillion-dollar investment.

In the late 1970s Chiang opened a second Mandarin in Beverly Hills, California in 1975. She sold the Mandarin in 1991, and it closed in 2006 and it was reopened as a restaurant by Sonoma Sonoma in 2011. She passed away in California on October 28th, 2020, at the age of 98. Her funeral was held at the San Francisco Chinese Club in San Diego, California, on October 29th. She will be buried in a private ceremony at a plot of land she had donated to the city’s Chinese Museum. Her husband was a former economics professor at Fu Jen Catholic University, and by then a successful local businessman.