Hong Kong’s Michelin Bib Gourmand-awarded restaurant Cafe Hunan opened its first American location in New York earlier this month in Long Island City at 4107 Crescent Street, near 41st Avenue.
Named Professor Chan’s Hunan — aka Prof Chan’s Hunan — the restaurant comes from an actual Hong Kong physics professor, Guanhua Chan, in 2012. When Chan first opened his restaurant, it was in response to there being no good Hunan restaurants around Hong Kong University where he was employed, so he decided to open one. Since then, Cafe Hunan expanded with six locations in China, and has been awarded Michelin’s Bib Gourmand ten years in a row since 2014.
As for the “Prof” in the name, the team decided that Cafe Hunan was already common in the U.S., so they decided to name the New York branch for the founders, taking inspiration from famed soup dumpling restaurant Joe’s Shanghai.
The team liked Long Island City because of its proximity to the boroughs and the growing pan-Asian communities in the neighborhood. The team will eventually expand into Manhattan and elsewhere along the East Coast.
Prof Chan’s director of U.S. operations Chi Zhang isn’t new to New York’s Chinese restaurants: He was a co-founding partner of Shanghainese noodle bowl restaurant Yaso Noodle Bar, creator of Sansan Chicken (a fast-casual Japanese fried chicken restaurant with a live-streamed cashier), and fast-casual restaurant Sansan Ramen. Zhang joined Cafe Hunan in 2013, and began overseeing this U.S. expansion in 2024.
The Long Island City location focuses on Hunan-style stir-fries. “We want to bring freshness, uniqueness, and real Hunanese spicy levels to the U.S. market,” Zhang says. That’s best exemplified through its Professor’s Stir-Fry. It’s made with belly and neck and Hunanese green peppers. Double-meats are often used to bring more flavor and textures into dishes. There are also iterations with beef, chicken, squid, mushrooms, stinky tofu, and more.
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The menu also lists chile-laced grilled fish; fried eggs, claypot-cooked potatoes; Xiangxi Miao-style marinated seafood, and more. Drinks include its Professor’s lime tea along with teas, bubble milks, beers, wines, and soju.
“People love spiciness, they love chiles,” Zhang says.