House of Nanking: Family Recipes from San Francisco’s Favorite Chinese Restaurant

From a beloved San Francisco culinary landmark, a showstopper cookbook that honors a family legacy and celebrates ingredient-driven, multi-regional Chinese cooking in America

The 100-plus recipes in this beautiful book include all the greatest hits from three generations of Fang family cooking from Canton to Shanghai, and readers will learn how to pan-fry, steam, cook in a wok, shop for ingredients, and prep vegetables the Chinese way.

With accessible recipes that are adaptable to any type of home kitchen, anyone will be able to make these dishes, wherever they are.

Since it opened in 1988, House of Nanking has been a popular spot for countless tourists, honeymooners, celebrities, and everyday San Franciscans who have lined up for their legendary Shanghai and Chinese American dishes.

This book marks the first time their recipes have appeared in print and have been adapted for the home kitchen. But it’ll be the stories behind them, which few have heard--of Peter Fang’s ingenuity and his early adventures in the kitchen, how he imported and adapted his favorite Shanghai dishes for America, and Kathy’s experience growing up with parents who bet it all on the restaurant, under the tutelage of all these rich Chinese culinary traditions--that will capture the heart.

Kathy Fang is the daughter of House of Nanking founders Peter and Lily Fang, who opened the restaurant in 1988. It has since become a San Francisco institution, earning a legacy business designation in 2020. Kathy went to culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu after growing up in restaurants for her entire life, and later opened Fang with her father, which combines their Chinese heritage and the global cuisines that Kathy sampled from traveling around the world. Kathy is also a two-time Chopped champion, and she and Peter have starred in the Food Network show Chef Dynasty: House of Fang. Emily Timberlake is a writer based in Oakland, California. As a former senior editor at Ten Speed Press, she acquired and edited more than 65 books, including many James Beard and IACP Award winners. She is the coauthor of the New York Times bestselling Foodheim with Eric Wareheim, the James Beard-nominated and IACP-winning Cure with Neal Bodenheimer, and Sundays with Sophie as well as the forthcoming Bobby Flay: Chapter One with Bobby Flay. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Taste, Punch, and more.