Fall Preview 2013

Chef Jonathan Wu Teams Up With Wilson Tang to Open Fung Tu

Photo: Kevin Truong

At 34, Jonathan Wu has spent a decade marking off the checklist of post-French Culinary Institute requisites: time in fine-dining kitchens in Madrid and Brittany; almost two years studying under Jonathan Benno at Per Se; and, most recently, a series of pop-up meals around the city. This fall, Wu teams up with Nom Wah Tea Parlor scion Wilson Tang to open Fung Tu, a 50-seat home for what he calls his “creative and personal interpretation” of American Chinese food. Cooks like Mission Chinese Food’s Danny Bowien have trod this ground before, but Wu’s style is more subtle, inspired by ingredients like toon leaves, the garlicky, mineral greens his grandparents grew in Yonkers. They’d cook them with scrambled eggs; Wu works them into poached meringue. Heritage and training likewise coalesce in a beet salad with garlic chives, aged bean curd, and century egg; and wheat noodles in pumpkin-seed sauce.

22 Orchard St., nr. Canal St.; no phone yet; October.

*This article originally appeared in the September 2, 2013 issue of New York Magazine.

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Chef Jonathan Wu Teams Up With Wilson Tang to Open Fung Tu