Ming Tsai

Ming Hao Tsai (born 1964) is an American chef, restaurateur, and television personality.

There, he was a member of the Phi chapter of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1986.

He received a master's degree in hotel administration and hospitality marketing from Cornell University in 1989.

Either the summer after his sophomore or junior year at Yale, he attended culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.

Tsai speaks four languages: English, Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish.

Tsai is a grandson of Chinese composer.

Tsai and Polly Talbott have been married since April 1996.

They have two sons, David and Henry.

David Talbott, Tsai's squash coach at Yale, and Mark Talbott, a former World No. 1 hardball squash player, are Tsai's brothers-in-law.

His niece is Lauren Tsai.

Tsai began his television career on chef Sara Moulton's cooking show Cooking Live while she had him fill in for one week for her in 1997.

Tsai's restaurants have focused on east–west fusion cuisine, and have included major stakes in Blue Ginger in Wellesley, Massachusetts (a Zagat- and James Beard-recognized establishment) from 1998 to 2017, and Blue Dragon in the Fort Point Channel area of Boston (a Zagat-recognized tapas-style gastropub named in Esquire Magazine "Best New Restaurants 2013").

Tsai hosts Simply Ming, a cooking show featured on American Public Television, in its seventeenth season.

Past shows Tsai hosted include Ming's Quest, a cooking show featured on the Fine Living Network, and East Meets West.

He hosted East Meets West on the Food Network from 1998 to 2003.

He hosts Simply Ming, a food show on PBS.

In 1998, Tsai and Polly Talbott opened his first restaurant, Blue Ginger, in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Blue Ginger, an Asian Fusion restaurant, has become a Zagat and James Beard-recognized establishment, winning many other regional awards as well.

The year that the restaurant opened, Tsai was named "Chef of the Year" by Esquire Magazine.

Tsai won the Daytime Emmy award in 1999, in the category Outstanding Service Show Host.

In 2000, Ming was on the 50 Most Beautiful People list published by People magazine.

In 2005, he was a judge on the PBS show Cooking Under Fire.

Ming Tsai challenged Iron Chef Bobby Flay in the sixth episode of season one of Iron Chef America in 2005; Tsai defeated Flay.

His other television appearances include participation in a Zoom Out on Zoom, a show distributed by PBS, in 2005 and on the PBS children's television show Arthur episode in 2006.

Tsai appeared in the Food Network cooking competition The Next Iron Chef (2010).

Tsai was born to Iris (née Lee), who owned a Chinese restaurant, and Stephen W. Tsai, an engineer who co-developed the Tsai-Wu failure criterion, and was raised in Dayton, Ohio, where he attended The Miami Valley School.

He assisted with the cooking as he was growing up in the restaurant, Mandarin Kitchen.

Tsai's maternal grandparents emigrated to Dayton from Taiwan after escaping China during the Cultural Revolution.

Tsai later attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and then proceeded to study engineering and play varsity squash at Yale University.

Tsai was a contestant in The Next Iron Chef in 2010, where he was eliminated in the seventh week.

On March 30, 2010 Tsai opened Blue Ginger Noodle Bar, a mini-restaurant, inside Blue Ginger.

He is a 116th great grandson of Huang Di.

Tsai's Blue Ginger Restaurant was inducted into the Culinary Hall of Fame in 2012.

Tsai opened Blue Dragon in 2013 in the Fort Point Channel area of Boston, an east–west tapas-style gastropub that has become a Zagat's recognized restaurant, which was named an Esquire Magazine "Best New Restaurant" in its opening year.

Tsai appeared on an episode of Top Chef in 2014.

In June 2017, Tsai closed Blue Ginger after 19 years of business.

The reason was due to the end of a lease and Tsai's focus on a new fast-casual stir-fry concept restaurant, ChowStirs, scheduled to open in Boston during the early part of 2018.

Blue Dragon closed in March 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic.

In 2020, Tsai opened BāBā at the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Montana as chef and partner.

Tsai is the author of five cookbooks: Blue Ginger, Simply Ming, Ming's Master Recipes, Simply Ming: One-Pot Meals, and Simply Ming in Your Kitchen.