| Born | September 14, 1917 Beijing, China |
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| Died | August 23, 1994 (aged 76) |
| Cooking style | Beijing cuisine |
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Joyce Chen (September 14, 1917 – August 23, 1994[1]) was a Chinese chef, restaurateur, and entrepreneur. Born in Beijing, China, Chen and husband Thomas left Shanghai in 1949 as the communists were taking over the country.[2] Chen ultimately settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Chen opened her first restaurant, "Joyce Chen Restaurant", in 1958. The first restaurant was located at Central Square on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge, it was halfway between Harvard and MIT. It was a tiny take out place and in no time people lined up to get Chinese food of a kind that few Americans had ever tasted. A few years later she opened the next restaurant in north Cambridge. This was a larger, sit down place. That place did so well that a third place was opened very close to MIT. This was a larger and fancier place than the first two places. When Joyce came to America she knew no English. I took her first cooking class and at that time she was still struggling with English but she wasn't stopped by that. As we came to know each other she told me that her marriage was an arranged marriage and was not a happy one. She said her husband was unfaithful. She was a very kind, good person. Every year she would buy toys for all her employees children. Once I ran into her when she was doing the Christmas shopping and she motioned me to come to her and when I did she grinned and said, "I did it". I asked her what she "did" and she said "I got rid of him and the restaurants are all mine because my name was on them all". So- this woman who was brought to America with no English and, seemingly, no skills had managed to become the owner of 3 successful restaurants, the author of a cookbook, a TV show and more. She had come from a well-to-do family with servants so she had no housekeeping skills. As a child she enjoyed hanging out in the kitchen and watching food being prepared. She put together her memories and taught herself to cook in the way that she had observed. A remarkable and determined woman and a joy to know. She got to make a triumphant return to China when Time-Life hired her to take photographers and reporters on a tour of China. In 1960, she began teaching Chinese cooking at the Cambridge and Boston Adult Education Centers, introducing many Americans to homestyle and gourmet Chinese cooking techniques. In 1962, she published her influential cookbook, The Joyce Chen Cookbook.[3] Unlike contemporary cookbooks, just about every recipe calls for MSG to be added.
In 1968, she starred in her own cooking show on PBS called Joyce Chen Cooks.[4] The show was filmed on the same set as The French Chef with Julia Child in Boston.[5] Chen later introduced a line of Chinese cooking utensils.[2] Chen is credited with popularizing the Mandarin style of Chinese cooking in the United States.
Chen wanted to make Chinese food accessible to the American public. Since her first restaurant was in an Italian area, she renamed potstickers, or pork-filled Chinese dumplings, to "Peking ravioli" on her menus. Chinese restaurants and diners in the greater Boston, Massachusetts, area still call the dumplings "Peking ravioli" or simply "ravs."[4][6]
Members of Bolt, Beranek and Newman's IMP team, when they were working on the first IMPs to create the ARPANET in 1969, would eat Chen's food as her Cambridge restaurant was next door to BBN.[7] Chen opened another restaurant also very popular with hackers, Small Eating Place, on the edge of the MIT campus.[8][9]
Chen died of Alzheimer's disease in 1994.[2] Her namesake restaurant closed in 1998.[10] Son Henry (d. 2007) owned Joyce Chen Unlimited, a retail store in Acton, Massachusetts, which closed in March 2008.[11] Her son Stephen Chen is president of Joyce Chen Foods, Inc.[10][12] Daughter Helen Chen markets a line of Asian kitchen products for Harold Import Company.[13]
Many Joyce Chen disciples still own and run Boston area Chinese restaurants. Among them is Pui Chan from The Wok in Wellesley, MA. Chan worked for Chen starting in 1976 at the Alewife location. Chan opened his own restaurant with Chen's encouragement in 1978.[14]