COVER STORY

Expect the Unexpected

‘MasterChef’ champion shares food, passion and knowledge

Chef Dara Yu is a Culver City High School alumna and “MasterChef” Season 12 champion. Recently The Gourmandise School hosted a MasterChef “Back to Win” viewing party at Santa Monica Place to cheer on Yu, along with fellow contestants.

By Marin Heinritz

When she was just 3 years old at her mom’s 40th birthday party at the Santa Monica Airport’s pan-Asian restaurant, Typhoon, “MasterChef” Season 12 champion Dara Yu exuberantly chowed down on crickets. Everyone at the party laughed and feigned disgust, but it was the first public display of the young foodie’s commitment to adventurous eating. “My passion for cooking comes from my love of eating and I’ve always been an adventurous eater,” Yu said. “It was very encouraged and my mom was always having me try new things.” At 12, Yu was runner-up on Season One of “MasterChef Junior,” and she took home the $250,000 MasterChef prize last season at the age of 21. Clearly, her commitment has taken her far—and has only just begun. The Culver City High School alumna is also a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, and a chef instructor and kitchen assistant at the Gourmandise School of Sweets and Savories in Santa Monica. Yu’s love of food is rooted in family, education, and Los Angeles – her other passions. “I grew up around a lot of good food,” Yu said, adding that her food aesthetic is inspired in large part by her grandparents, Chinese immigrants from New Zealand. Her grandmother taught traditional Chinese cooking classes at a community college in South Bend, Indiana in the 1960s when Yu’s grandfather was a math professor at Notre Dame. “It was a rarity,” Yu said. “I’ve been very influenced by her. My mother learned from her and that was passed down to me.” Her family encouraged her and inspired her aesthetic with their cultural foodways, but Yu also credits her lineage of educators with shaping her desire to help inspire others and share what she knows and loves. “It’s always also been an important mission in my family to just share your passion share knowledge,” she said. “The thing I love about food is the community aspect of it and sharing a meal together. I love being in the kitchen and knowing those people could go on and share that knowledge further.” From offering a savory pies class inspired by her family’s New Zealand heritage to working as a Hershey’s Holiday Recipe Developer to being a contributing food writer for Girls Life Magazine, Yu is certainly sharing her knowledge and expertise that emerges from nine years in the restaurant industry and five years working professionally more specifically in pastry, though she acknowledges her work is continuously evolving. “I’m 21, so I still have so much learning to do,” Yu said. “Going back onto ‘MasterChef’ made me rethink my voice in food and it’s something I’ll still and forever will be figuring out.” But one thing she knows for sure is that Los Angeles is home and will always be central to her style. “I was born and raised in LA and it has a very strong influence,” she said. “LA is reflective of California cuisine and this mixing pot of cultures. I can merge and combine flavors and techniques from all sorts of influences, it’s a fusion.” Yu said it’s been very important to her to understand where her food is coming from and that she’s “worked over the last year building relationship with farmers at the Santa Monica farmers market.” She also loves going to local markets, finding new ingredients in places such as Koreatown and the Persian grocery stores in Westwood to come up with new recipes. She recently experimented with some new chiles and shiitake mushrooms to create a new pozole. “The diversity is so great,” she said. “You can get any food you really want depending on traffic within a 20 to 30-minute drive and then be at the beach… Growing up here, it’s a very unique experience and it’s something I think is just ingrained.” Which is why even though she plans to travel widely with her MasterChef winnings to explore food cultures of the world as well as develop some new businesses, including “collaborations and pop ups with some chefs in LA,” she said Los Angeles will always be her home base. “Too much of my life is in West LA,” she said, citing “the beach, the weather, the food” as axiomatic reasons to never leave home for good. And ultimately, she aims to give others, especially those like her, hope in what’s possible. “I want to inspire anyone who loves food . . . to go after it. I think that the industry can be scary and intimidating, especially for young females, especially being an AsianAmerican as well, but the industry is changing and very diverse and accepting now,” she said, adding that what has served her well is “to expect the unexpected at times but go into it with an open mind and have fun.” To catch up on previous episodes of “MasterChef,” check out Hulu and FOX Now.