Charleston chef Shuai Wang competes on ‘Top Chef’ in Canada
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – The owner of two local restaurants is competing against other chefs around the country on season 22 of ‘Top Chef: Destination Canada.’ The cooking pro is prepared to bring the heat in the reality competition television series.
“My favorite dish. That’s a hard one. There’s so many … honestly one of my favorite, favorite things in the whole entire world to eat, and I can eat endless amount of this, is just my mom’s cooking, shared Chef Shuai Wang.
He went on to explain, “She does this stuffed scallion pancake. It has garlic chives and ground pork in there. I can just eat that ’til I’m sick, basically.”
Chef Wang was born in Beijing, China and immigrated to the United States to Queens, New York. He later moved to Charleston, thinking he would be there for a short time to help a friend. He ended up falling in love with the Holy City’s charm.
“I love North Charleston particularly. It feels very much my own vibe. It’s all the working class and people like my age who are just trying to, you know, make a living and start a family,” said Chef Wang, who is the owner of Jackrabbit Filly and King BBQ.
“At Jackrabbit Filly, we call it Chinese American. It’s not so much the American Chinese food that most people are used to, which is your typical takeout right, your General Tso’s chicken, your beef and broccoli,” he said.
Instead, the menu is inspired by recipes made with love by his mother and grandmother.
“It’s like old-school Beijing-style food, which you don’t typically see in the States, but then we also utilize as much local ingredients as possible. In fact, we’re part of the fresh menu program, so more than 25% of our menu is local and I don’t think you see that a lot with Chinese food either and it’s not just Chinese, it’s Chinese food inspired, but it’s food that’s kind of inspired me throughout my whole entire career,” said Chef Wang.
A melting pot of flavors, his other restaurant, King BBQ, is inspired by Chinatown-style BBQ married with a southern technique.
“More Carolina-style barbeque than anything else. You know, a lot of tons of great barbeque here in Charleston,” he said.
Not competitive in nature, Chef Wang saw ‘Top Chef’ as an opportunity to showcase his skills and promote his restaurants even though he was hesitant to apply for the show.
Chef Wang shared, “I was dreading it before going on because, again, I’m not competitive I thought everyone’s going to be butting heads and be mean to each other and that’s not just my vibe you know, but as soon as we started and after the first episode, it was just like everyone’s so nice. We just bonded immediately.”
Before going on ‘Top Chef,’ Chef Wang didn’t watch the show until he was chosen to be a contestant.
He explained, “I don’t watch cooking competitions shows typically just because, you know, I worked cart service every day and the last thing I want to do is kind of give myself more anxiety by watching other chef’s struggle.”
Before competing on the show this season, Chef Wang not only tested recipes he hadn’t made in awhile, he also completed 30 minute challenges at home with his wife.
“Just kind of timing myself, we spent a lot of time at Whole Foods trying to memorize the aisles which was very silly because you know, didn’t realize, didn’t even think about Canadian Whole Foods might be different than the United States Whole foods,” said Chef Wang.
Grateful for the opportunity, as Chef Wang competes, he cooks each dish with passion.
He went on to say, “For me, to be a chef is less about the food and is more about taking care of people. I love having to take care of someone, and the best way to do that, for me, is through food. Something about food just brings everyone together and watching people eat your food and having that reaction, that’s like, you know, like happiness, biggest reason why I wanted to be a chef.”
The winner of ‘Top Chef’ will take home the grand prize of $250,000. You can support Chef Wang by watching him on Bravo every Thursday at 9 p.m. or streaming it the next day on Peacock.
