Here’s How Valerie Chang Incorporates Family History Into Her Food
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Chef Valerie Chang is wrist-deep in a metal bowl twice the size of her head. With gloved hands, she gently tosses a heap of bay scallops with ingredients like crispy garlic, finger limes, and burnt serrano peppers. She plates the mixture with paper-thin sliced grapes, cilantro Leche de Tigre (a citrusy marinade), and huacatay oil from the Peruvian Andes, forming a version of her scallop cebiche (the Peruvian spelling)—a favorite on the menu at Maty’s, her award-winning Peruvian restaurant in Miami. The dish is melt-in-your-mouth soft, citrusy, and spicy all at once. It’s a revelation.
Chang, who grew up in Chiclayo, Peru, and moved to Miami at age 10, is inspired by the Peruvian dishes her grandmother Maty made for her growing up, whether it’s a whole roasted fish (in this case, a dorade), an oxtail spin on lomo saltado, picarones for dessert, or a choclo with Huancaína sauce that could double as a smoky corn mac and cheese.
Since opening in March 2023, Maty’s has became one of the country’s buzziest new restaurants, landing on best-of lists from The New York Times, Bon Appétit, and Esquire. This June, Chang also earned a James Beard Award for Best Chef: South. “I never imagined that Maty’s would touch people’s hearts the way that it has,” she says.
Prior to Maty’s, Chang made her mark on the Miami food scene alongside her brother, Nando, and their father, Fernando. Together, they opened Itamae, a Nikkei (Japanese-Peruvian cuisine) restaurant, in 2018, and its sushi offshoot, B-Side, one year later. Nando also runs Itamae AO, an omakase tasting room next door to Maty’s, and has been known to swing by and help his sister in the kitchen. “I don’t think Maty’s would be what it is without my brother,” Chang says. “I mean, he carries a big, big load of it.”
Growing up, the siblings accompanied their dad to his job at a sushi restaurant, because he couldn’t afford a babysitter. They tagged along to his catering events, and eventually started assisting him. Chang, who was struggling in school, loved the idea of earning her own money instead of going to class. “I made $500 one time, and I was like, ‘I’m sold. This is a life I deserve,’” she says.
But the real origin of her long love affair with food began elsewhere in the family: “Both of my grandmothers were extraordinary cooks,” Chang says. “We grew up around food.”
At 19 years old, she started working in restaurants. Three years later, at the age of 22, Chang quit her floor manager job and enrolled in culinary school. After graduating from Miami Culinary Institute, she went on to work under renowned chefs like Thomas Keller and Michael Solomonov. All roads led her to Maty’s, an airy, 150-seat Wynwood restaurant, where vintage photos of her grandmother hang on the walls.
When I meet Chang, she and her cebiche are not in Miami, but on a ranch in Austin, Texas, where an industrial kitchen has been set up on the same grounds as a longhorn pen. She and a few other Maty’s cooks flew in to serve some of the restaurant’s signature dishes—plus some new creations—as part of an immersive dining experience called “World to Table,” hosted by American Express and Delta SkyMiles. It’s telling that such big companies chose her as the inaugural host for this exclusive new series.
As the sun sets over the ranch, Chang tells her diners that she feels honored to represent her heritage in this way, and so far away from home. “I hope that tonight you feel connected to my family, to Maty’s, and to Peru,” she says.
There’s lots in store for Maty’s, including a new logo, but one thing will remain constant: “We stay true to ourselves,” Chang says.
You’ve received so many accolades, including a James Beard Award and landing on multiple best restaurant lists. How are you processing it all?
I feel super thankful, grateful, and blessed. I never thought that I would get any of it. I wasn’t ever really driven by these things. I mean, cooking was literally the only place I fit in. I really struggled in school and college. I ended up dropping out. When I stepped into a restaurant, it was the only place where I was like, “Okay, I might be good at something.”
So that was my whole focus, and it’s just beautiful. People are always congratulating me, but it’s all about the whole team. And it keeps the restaurant busy, which is the only thing that truly matters: that people enjoy the food. That the team we’ve decided to hire and work with—and the team that stays with us—has a job. And that you’re able to secure them and, hopefully, as the restaurant grows, you’re able to help them grow. That’s the most meaningful part.
Your grandmother Maty is the inspiration behind the restaurant. What was your relationship like? Did she open your eyes to food and cooking?
She helped take care of four grandkids, and she always cooked Chinese-Peruvian food for us on Sundays. My grandmother taught me how to be optimistic about life and understand that everything is always going to work out. She was also very resilient—the most resilient woman I’ve ever met. So I think that’s where the biggest inspiration came from for the restaurant: just staying resilient, staying focused, and keeping on track.
Are there any dishes on the menu directly inspired by your grandmother?
She always liked eating a whole fish. We knew we were having a whole fish on the menu. We have an oxtail dish that’s an oxtail saltado; usually everybody knows lomo saltado [Peruvian beef stir fry]. [Maty] has passed away now, but I often look at the menu and think, “I wonder what she would really like. I wonder what she would think.” I know she would be super happy; she would be exactly who she always was. But I do always wonder what she would think of the menu. I wish I’d written down more of her recipes.
I love that you’re helping keep her memory alive through the restaurant.
There’s a whole wall of her pictures at the restaurant. They’re all original pictures that she saved. I kind of feel like maybe she thought this would [exist] eventually. But [flipping through family photos and seeing her pictures] was a new experience for me. I had never seen my grandmother as a child. I got to read all the letters between my grandparents when they were courting each other. Being “left on read” was a thing back then, too. I read letters, and my grandmother was like, “If you’re going to be busy for the whole month, the least you can do is write me a letter and let me know. I don’t appreciate it when you don’t respond to me.”
Yeah, like, don’t ghost me via letter!
Okay, grandma!
It’s great that you were able to see all that. It’s part of your own history, too.
Yeah. It’s made me a lot more curious about my Chinese side.
What is the Chinese-Peruvian community like in Peru?
It’s a very big community. It’s so common to be Asian in Peru, but our great-grandparents definitely experienced a lot of racism growing up. It’s so common being Chinese-Peruvian, but even when you’re Chinese-Peruvian in Peru, you only identify as Peruvian. [Editor’s note: There is a large Chinese diaspora in Peru, stemming from China having sent laborers to Peru in the mid-1800s.]
It was only when I moved to the U.S. that people were like, “What are you?” And I’m like, “Peruvian.” And they’re like, “No, no, but what are you?” I’m like, “I don’t even know how to answer this.” Or they’ll say, “Why is your last name Chang?” which is something people never questioned when I lived in Peru.
I noticed there are a lot of women in leadership positions at Maty’s. Is that intentional?
It’s hard. I’ve always kind of stayed away from these conversations, because I think you can just do what you need to do, and let the restaurant speak for itself. Let the actions speak for themselves; let the team speak for itself. It’s not intentional, but it’s not unintentional. It just kind of works out this way. I have two brothers. So I have a different perspective on these things. I’m aware these [topics] are real, pressing issues, of course. I have been in the restaurant business for a while. I know what it’s like to be a woman in the kitchen. I know what it’s like to be not just a woman in a restaurant, but also a woman in power. But I’ve always believed that the work would show itself.
It says a lot to be recognized for your skills, rather than just your gender.
This conversation is only really hard to swallow from a man’s perspective. And it needs to be brought up, and it needs to be cleared up. From my perspective, as a woman, it’s like, “Yeah, duh, we’ve been doing this.” We’ve always been here, and we have been the backbone of a lot of things. We have been getting it done, and we’re as good as anybody else. So why is this even a conversation?
What was your experience after culinary school and training in restaurants, before you opened your own place?
A lot of the women that I looked up to when I was coming up were really hard and mean, because they needed to be. If they were on the hardest stations, they were hard. And so that was really difficult to understand or try to figure out: Who am I going to be? If I’m nice, am I weaker than she is?
I had moments, too, when I was coming up where I would just be really, really intense about things and really emotional. And I’m sure I still am, but I’ve matured and done a lot. I still do a lot of therapy. I’ve gotten to a place where I just don’t want to yell, and I don’t want to be angry, and I don’t want to be upset. And I don’t want to be really pissed off every day of my life, because I’ve been at this for a long time.
I’ve been in a restaurant for 15 years now. I want to be in a place in my career where I enjoy things. There are many tough days where I really don’t enjoy any of it, for sure, but for the most part, I really drive myself by enjoying the process.
How has that shaped you as a chef and a boss?
I’m still trying to figure out my leadership style, because sometimes people say I’m too relaxed. Too extreme. When a cook makes a mistake when we’re really busy, or even when we’re not, I’ve learned to just be like, “Hey, you have to go out there. You have to talk to the guest, and you have to explain to them the mistake and then let them know that you’re going to remake this.” You need to be comfortable with being able to show your face. It’s something that we really practice. If you fuck up, you’re going out there yourself, but not in a shameful way—in a very responsible way.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
This story is part of our Chef’s Kiss series. Click the link below for all the profiles.
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