Abundance Culinary Chef Liu Fang Lands on National Chefs to Watch List

Chef Liu Fang and Carl Setzer have quickly gained fans after turning an occasional pop-up series serving dumplings and noodles at Larder into a full-scale brick-and-mortar restaurant in the former diner car in Cleveland Heights.

And Fang's reputation has spread far beyond Cleveland.

Plate Magazine this month released its tenth annual Chefs to Watch list , celebrating 15 up-and-comers on the culinary scene across America, and Fang landed one of the coveted spots.

"Thanks to Plate Magazine for seeing something special in what we are doing here at Abundance Culinary," Fang said in a statement posted to social media. "Sometimes the grind of growing a restaurant concept can put you in a place where you doubt yourself and wonder if you are doing the right thing. I hope that my food continues to speak for itself and that more and more people are intrigued enough to try it. It’s a pure delight to get lost in my menus and rediscover myself everyday through the flavors of my youth, my culture and my future."

Those flavors of her youth, culture and future have been on full display as Abudance seeks to carve out a new space for Asian dining in Cleveland.

Liu, who was born and raised in China, met Setzer, who was born and raised in Northeast Ohio, in China in 2004. Together, they founded the first craft brewery in Beijing and quickly expanded, opening additional bars and brewpubs in the region. Covid drove the pair to Cleveland, where they have lived for the past three years.

“Chinese-American food has had the same flavors for the past 20, 30 years and there’s a love for it,” she told Scene last year. “But I think it’s time for a change. It so happens that Carl and I were in China running a food and beverage business while China had its big economic development. Being able to bring a concept like craft beer to China using Chinese ingredients, we want to do something similar here but reversed: to bring elevated and modern Chinese flavor to a market where there is an abundance of almost everything, raw material-wise, talent-wise and curiosity from the public.”

Plate concurs that Fang has achieved just that: "The menu at her restaurant, Abundance Culinary, is a love letter to her home country and built from her desire to share its flavors with her new home in the Midwest. It also nods to its Cleveland."

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