On the last Monday of January, the Yale Sustainable Food Program hosted our first Chewing the Fat speaker series event of 2024 in conjunction with Timothy Dwight College. Pastry chef Lauren Tran and her husband Garland Wong traveled from New York for a college tea in which they discussed their experiences running dessert pop-ups and opening a bakery. Tran is known for her synthesis of Vietnamese flavors and French pastry techniques, and she shared her unique perspective on the relationship between food, culture, and identity to an audience of dozens of fascinated Yale students.
Tran began with an overview of her path to becoming a pastry chef. Although she majored in political science and intended to go to medical school, she always had a passion for pastry. She spent years working both front and back of house in upscale restaurants in Seattle before going to pastry school and landing a position as a pastry cook at the Michelin-starred Gramercy Tavern. When COVID hit and restaurants shut down, Tran, like many of her colleagues, started selling dessert boxes via Instagram under the name Bánh by Lauren. As the boxes grew in popularity, she pivoted to running pop-ups, where excited attendees would sometimes wait hours in line for a chance to try coconut pandan or thai tea chiffon cakes, macarons with flavors like red oolong and dark chocolate jasmine strawberry, and Vietnamese desserts like bánh bò nướng, or honeycomb cake. After months of successful pop-ups, Lauren and Garland began work on a brick-and-mortar bakery.
Throughout the event, Tran spoke with nuance about her Vietnamese American identity and how it shaped her cooking. She pointed out that there are very few Vietnamese bakeries in New York, unlike on the West Coast, and described how her pastries can both connect Vietnamese Americans to their heritage and introduce many non-Vietnamese customers to unfamiliar flavors. She noted that she sometimes feels expected to “put pandan in everything,” but that she wants to employ the flavors in ways that make sense to her — neither obscuring them nor using them without careful consideration. She also described how, as a kid, she often ate Vietnamese pastries that were prepackaged and not freshly made. She wants her customers to eat sesame balls fresh from the fryer, but she noted that serving fresh pastries made with high-quality ingredients and sustainable packaging can be more expensive — and that customers often assume Vietnamese food should be cheap.
Tran and Wong also discussed the many challenges of running a food business, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic. Wong jokingly described Tran’s chaotic system for managing the first pastry box orders: she would reply to every Instagram DM individually until he helped her draft form replies and spreadsheets to keep track of her customers. They described the challenges of finding an affordable location, as bakeries require specific infrastructure and ventilation that many buildings lack. Financing the bakery was difficult, since food businesses are a risky venture which banks are hesitant to loan to, and platforms like Kickstarter take a considerable percentage of fundraised dollars. And although Bánh by Lauren has attracted considerable online attention, especially after the New York Times ran a video profile of Tran, generating publicity is still a source of stress. Tran noted that many fantastic restaurants struggle to attract customers, while more well-resourced restaurateurs can rely on expensive public relations firms to bring in diners.
Many thanks to Lauren and Garland for their insights and their delicious desserts. We also want to express our gratitude to Timothy Dwight Head of College Mary Lui, Associate Head Vincent Balbarin,Timothy Dwight staff members Kimberly Rogers, Samantha Gambardella, and Sharon Goldbloom, and their college aides for making this event such a success.
Photos from the event can be found here.