New School Cantonese Restaurants Are Making Waves Across the Country

Young and hungry chefs are digging into Cantonese nostalgia.

Something exciting has been simmering with Cantonese food in the past few years. Four Kings was the hottest opening in San Francisco this year, rocking Hong Kong–style street food. Bonnie’s from 2022 F&W Best New Chef Calvin Eng remains an absolute scene in Brooklyn. Potluck Club and Phoenix Palace in Manhattan joined the Canto party in 2022 and 2024, respectively. And while the wave might have already crested in LA — with Pearl River Deli popping up in 2020 and closing in 2024, and Needle opening in 2019 and closing by 2023 — hot new Cantonese restaurants keep opening across the country. Rubato brought buttery bolo bao to the Boston area in 2022, MAKfam threw down dumplings and noodles in Denver in 2023, and King BBQ fired up char siu ribs in Charleston in 2023.

Cantonese food has a deep-fried and sticky-sweet history in America. It originally comes from southern China, specifically the Guangdong province formerly known as Canton, as well as Hong Kong. Chinese immigrants have flowed to the United States since the Gold Rush in the 1850s, and the biggest Chinatowns and communities are still in California and New York. Where for better or worse, Cantonese food has become Americanized, often associated with white tablecloths and rotating circular trays, steaming dim sum carts and barbecue ducks swinging in windows.

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But now, there seems to be a new wave of young and hungry chefs digging into Cantonese nostalgia. “There’s a big group of guys doing similar Cantonese American style food,” says Eng of Bonnie’s. “I think it’s a different generation of kids who were born and raised in New York, who lived in immigrant households where both sides of the family were from southern China. We grew up eating Cantonese food, but worked in all different kitchens besides Cantonese restaurants. And now, the food that we all do is our own take on it.”

Eng was born and raised in New York, and all of his grandparents come from the same village in Toisan, and his mom grew up in Hong Kong. In their immigrant household, his mom served big family-style meals, which followed a specific set — seafood, chicken or pork, steamed charcuterie, stir-fried vegetables, and rice, of course. Eng remembers getting home from school around 3 o’clock, and she would already be prepping in the kitchen. “It was a feast, every single night.” He did name his restaurant after his mom, and today Bonnie’s is one of the biggest scenes in Williamsburg, where he’s slinging super nostalgic and wildly creative fare.

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Eng describes his style as Cantonese-American, emphasizing that order, and says every dish has a story. “Everything is stuff that I loved eating as a kid … and if it’s not a banger, it can’t make the menu.” You can taste his perspective through cacio e pepe tossed in a wok with fermented black beans, a grilled squid salad that riffs on deli fare, and a chrysanthemum salad served untraditionally raw. The most iconic dish is the BKRib, where Cantonese barbecue meets a McDonald’s sandwich. He takes his mom’s steamed ribs, shreds them into a sticky-sweet marinade, and heaps a handful on a soft bun, topped with housemade bread-and-butter pickles and hot mustard.

For the Four Kings crew in San Francisco, chef Franky Ho grew up in a combo of SF and Guangdong, while chef Michael Long lived in LA and visited Hong Kong. They met working the line at Mister Jiu’s, arguably the frontrunner for this new school of Cantonese (it opened in 2016). Ho and Long bonded over their shared love of Hong Kong street food and Canto pop music from the 90’s. Together with their partners Millie Boonkokua and Lucy Li, who also have Chinese heritage, Four Kings blasted open in Chinatown in early 2024, and it’s been slammed ever since. “We are unapologetically showing our identity as Chinese Americans and Cantonese Americans,” Li says. “You see it in the food, decor, and music. Everything is aggressively leaning into that.”

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The menu is designed for drinking and snacking with friends, just like eating at a night market. The dish with the deepest personal connection is the fried squab, inspired by the signature dish of Ho’s hometown of Zhongshan. The birds get marinated and smoked, hung on display in the open kitchen, and deep fried to order, rendering them juicy and crackly. Canto nostalgia sings through the smoky chow fun kissed with the breath of the wok, fatty claypot rice slicked with homemade sausage and bacon, and certain ingredients that challenge western palates, like the texture pop of jellyfish salad. Other dishes aren’t Cantonese at all, like the mapo spaghetti — closer to Sichuan slash Italian — but it’s simply how these buddies love to eat.

Laurence Louie of Rubato in Boston has a sweet family story, taking over his mom’s old-school Cantonese bakery during the pandemic. Louie was born and raised in the Boston area (technically Brookline), and both sides of his family are from Toisan, and his mom grew up in Hong Kong. His mom was a public school teacher by day and is still a rockstar by night; at 72 years old she plays in a local band that performs 90’s Canto pop. Louie grew up eating a lot of day-old bao buns, as well as Cantonese home cooking. He worked in social justice with teens in Chinatown, and spent a year slurping noodles in Guangzhou, before ultimately deciding to become a chef.

He relaunched Rubato as a retro modern Hong Kong–style cafe, with green tiles and butcher curtains, which cast a butter yellow glow into the space. “Have you ever seen a Wong Kar-wai movie?” Louie asks, referencing the Hong Kong director. The menu digs into Cantonese comfort food, and traditional items include plain bolo bao with a slab of butter, congee rice porridge with century egg, and cheung fun or rice noodle rolls.

But the hot new sandwich is the fried chicken bolo bao. He tweaked his mom’s bao recipe for more crackly topping and a super soft interior, baking the buns side by side (Hawaiian roll style). He marinates chicken thighs in a thick batter of buttermilk and tofu, and dredges them in a special cornstarch mixture, for a KFC level crunch. Then takes it over the top with a sesame slaw and spicy mayo.

Louie says that sometimes the aunties give him a hard time. “They’re like, could you just make this normal?” he laughs. Other times, people ask if his restaurant is Chinese, American, or “fusion,” a word he doesn’t use. But he’s excited to be part of this new crew across the country. “The more modern take is being led by a handful of Chinese American chefs that are cooking some cool things that are authentic to our experience as Chinese Americans.”