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Although he grew up Chinese-American and Southern in metro Atlanta, Chef Ron Hsu said he never felt different or alienated as a child. It’s a product of growing up in a multicultural city, he said, but also reflects the diverse environment Hsu’s parents, both restaurateurs, created for him and his siblings.
Hsu’s childhood growing up in the restaurant industry shapes the tone of his debut cookbook, “Down South + East,” publishing March 17. But the cookbook and the inspiration behind it are just part of Hsu’s story.
Living within two cultures
“I don’t think [my culture] was top of mind growing up, to be quite frank. As a child, I was probably a little more naive about everything. As an adult, I realize how much of an influence it had on me,” Hsu said. “But as a child, I don’t think it was like, ‘Oh, I’m Chinese,’ because it was part of my everyday.”
Hsu’s childhood backyard in Henry County included a chicken pen. The chef recalled chasing chickens around the yard to collect for meals his grandmother cooked. When friends came over to play, Hsu said they frequently asked why plucked chickens sometimes hung from the gutter, to which he replied, “That’s our dinner.”
Hsu and his siblings, Howard and Anita (Sweet Auburn BBQ, Tio Lucho’s), grew up in Stockbridge in the 1980s. Their parents ran a quintet of restaurants collectively called Hunan Village. The trio spent much of their childhood at Hunan Village 1, studying and working after school. Hsu’s late mother, Betty, struck a deal with the school superintendent. In exchange for adding Hunan Village 1 to the bus route, she provided boxed lunches for the middle schoolers once a year.
“I would wake up, go to school, and then get dropped off at the restaurant. I would do my homework. As soon as I was done, I would wash dishes. Once I got strong and comfortable enough using a knife or peeler, I would cut and peel onions and carrots,” Hsu said.
At Hunan Village 1, Hsu grew to understand his parents’ sense of hospitality, which extended beyond the restaurants they owned. Betty Hsu never forgot her experience immigrating to the United States from Malaysia in the 1970s. After becoming a US citizen, she sponsored her parents and seven siblings.
His parents would later open their home to new employees who were undergoing the immigration process. Hsu said he sometimes gave up his bedroom to help these employees acclimate to the US.
Becoming a chef
Hsu didn’t picture himself becoming a chef.
While studying business at the University of Georgia, he worked part-time at an Athens restaurant called Speakeasy. His roommate persuaded him to drop out of business school to attend culinary school.
“I approached my mother and [told her] that I was going to finish and get my business degree, but after that, I would go to culinary school,” Hsu said. “She goes, ‘Why don’t you drop out next semester and go to culinary school?’”
Hsu’s mother offered a caveat: In exchange for support, he needed to get a restaurant job outside Hunan Village. Hsu excelled at Speakeasy, and later moved to Australia for culinary school. After a year and a half, however, it got too expensive. He returned home and started working at Dish Atlanta in Virginia-Highland. That’s when Hsu met his mentor, Sheri Davis, who encouraged him to move to New York. She even lined up a few stage positions for him at esteemed restaurants.
“I liked Le Bernardin the most. They offered me a job and I took it. Three months after I staged, I moved to New York and started working at Le Bernardin,” he said.
Hsu worked his way up to executive sous chef and helped with chef Eric Ripert’s other restaurants, before moving on to the executive chef post at French-Vietnamese restaurant Le Colonial in New York.
After two years at Le Colonial, Hsu came back to Le Bernardin, this time as its creative director. The seven years he spent working with Ripert laid the foundation for Lazy Betty in Atlanta, which Hsu opened in 2019 with friend and fellow Le Bernardin chef Aaron Phillips. (Ripert wrote the foreword to Hsu’s cookbook.)
The James Beard-nominated tasting menu restaurant earned one star from Michelin in its 2023 and 2024 dining guides to Atlanta, as well as the 2025 dining guide to the American South.
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Paying homage to his mother
Lazy Betty pays homage to Hsu’s late mother and her interpretation of Southern hospitality. His mother, far from lazy, even after retirement, couldn’t sit still. Rarely slowing down, when she did, the family would joke with her about being “lazy.”
Betty Hsu was doubly proud of her children, who had foraged their own paths in the restaurant industry. She attended openings and big events at their restaurants, often greeting guests in the dining room.
“I think people that really embrace Southern hospitality really value human connection in human interaction. I always tell my team, ‘Do not be too formal. Try to interact with them like they’re your cousins or your friends,'” Hsu said.
“Down South + East” cookbook
Like Lazy Betty, “Down South + East,” which Hsu wrote with Chef Hugh Amano, is an extension of his collective experience with hospitality and food throughout his life and career.
In the cookbook, Hsu bases the recipe for char siu ribs on one of his wife’s favorite childhood dishes. He uses sorghum rather than the traditional maltose syrup to blend Chinese and Southern cuisines together in the ribs.
“That recipe is inspired by my mother-in-law. I started trying to do versions of it, and it slowly gravitated to char siu ribs with a Southern twist,” he said.
Hsu also loves the recipe for Vietnamese Coffee Tiramisu, which incorporates Arabica coffee, Vietnamese cinnamon, and condensed milk. And it doesn’t require complicated equipment.
“As long as you have a KitchenAid [stand mixer], it is such an easy thing to execute, and it’s so high payoff. I could eat loads of tiramisu, and the twist works really well,” he said.
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The Taiwanese-Style Chicken Nuggets, inspired by Chick-fil-A, and a pandan leaf banana pudding, inspired by childhood trips to one of his parents’s favorite chain restaurants, Golden Corral, pay tribute to the South’s love of comfort food.
“Banana pudding is such an iconic Southern dessert. I do the recipe in the cookbook as spiked with pandan leaf, a very aromatic leaf that is used a lot in Malaysia, where my parents were born,” he explained.
Hsu’s greatest aim with the cookbook, however, lies in continuing his parents’ inclusive and welcoming hospitality within the pages of “Down South + East.”
“I grew up in a very multicultural environment, and for me to see food bring all these different people from all these different walks of life together, that’s the end game,” Hsu said, pointing to ingredients as ties that bind.
“Look at rice. You have Hoppin’ John, you have congee, or risotto, they’re all rice. They’re just made differently,” Hsu added. “But at the core, they’re all the same for me. That’s really the premise of this cookbook.”