Cooking with Chef Pichet Ong

Eating and cooking are Pichet Ong’s hobby and heartbeat. As a chef, Pichet combines fond flavors of his childhood and travels with classic techniques to create sweet and savory foods that are pure, whimsical, and experimental, yet nostalgic. His food can be found worldwide, from New York to Sydney, Istanbul to Beijing, Tokyo to Washington, DC. Pichet is a self-taught chef. He is a Top Ten Pastry Chefs in America in Pastry Arts & Design. He’s been named “Rising Star” by Starchefs, a “Pastry Provocateur” by Pete Wells in Food & Wine.

He has been featured in Saveur, W, Elle, Vogue, Tatler, and O, the Oprah magazine. He headlined “The Chef” column in The New York Times for 8 weeks. His desserts have received multiple 3-star reviews in the New York Times, a Michelin star, and placement in Pellegrino’s the Worlds 50 Best. He is a 7-time nominee for the James Beard Award in different categories. He is a resident and guest judge on Food Network’s Cake Wars and Sugar Dome, Cake Wars, Halloween Wars, and Bravo’s Top Chef.

In 2019, he was a finalist for the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef. During that period, he opened Mama Chang with chef Peter Chang in Virginia that was named best new restaurant in Washington, DC, and NiHao in Baltimore, named  #4 best new restaurant in America in Esquire and landed as a James Beard award finalist for best new restaurant in 2022.