The man who brought Hunan cuisine to US leaves huge legacy at age 99

The Chinese restaurant world has lost another legend.

Henry Chung, a San Francisco restaurant pioneer who introduced the peppery, garlicky Hunan cuisine to the United States, died on April 23 at age 99.

Chung's death came about five months after the passing of Peng Chang-kuei, the man who created the American Chinese-restaurant staple, General Tso's chicken. Peng died on Nov 30 in Taipei, also close to 100 (his age was given as 97 or 98). Like Chung, he hailed from Hunan province.

Chung and his wife, Diana, are known for the Henry's Hunan chain of six restaurants, the first of which opened in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1974, at a time when relations between the US and China were thawing.

Chung was born in 1918 in Liling, Hunan province. He earned a scholarship to boarding school in the regional capital, Changsha. He was married as a boy and was a father of three children by the time he graduated boarding school.

He continued his schooling at National Central University in Nanjing, where he met and married a student named Diana, a star volleyball player.

After college, Chung went to work as a diplomat for the Kuomingtang government. He was posted for a short time to Japan after World War II and later stationed in Houston in 1948, bringing Diana and their two children to the United States.

The Kuomingtang government eventually fled the Chinese mainland for Taiwan and called Chung home, but his wife wanted to stay in the United States. So Henry Chung stayed.

According to sfgate.com, from the 1950s through the early 1970s, first in Houston and then San Francisco, the Chungs ran a variety of stores, such as diners and ice cream and shoe repair shops.

Chung eventually landed a job at China Airlines, but his wife wanted to give the restaurant business another try. They decided to serve their native Hunanese food, which then was an anomaly in the mostly Cantonese Chinatown.

The original restaurant on Kearny Street in 1974 — inspired by President Richard Nixon's visit to China, strived to create some culinary diplomacy between the two nations.

In 1976, Tony Hiss, a writer for The New Yorker magazine, ate at the Chungs' place and later wrote that it was "the best Chinese restaurant in the world".

Herb Caen, legendary columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, also added to Henry's Hunan's press clippings, and the rest was restaurant history.

"It changed our lives. We went from a restaurant that was moderately successful to being so busy that we had lines that went around the corner," Chung's son Howard told abc7news.com in San Francisco. "We had street performers that would come and perform in front of the lines."

The Chungs returned to China in 1982, and began bringing his children from his first marriage, along with their extended families, to the US. The growing restaurant chain now was managed and staffed by branches of the extended family.

The Chungs also were philanthropic. Henry Chung established the Diana T.Y. Chung scholarships at San Francisco State University, UC Berkeley and the UC Hastings College of the Law. They built a school gymnasium in China and also set up a scholarship at Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep in San Francisco.

Chung's obituary on legacy.com also tells of a near-fatal encounter he had with a one-armed river pirate during the Japanese occupation of China.

Chung's wife died in 2003, and he leaves behind eight children; many grand-, great and great-great grandchildren and much spicy Hunan cuisine. A reception is scheduled for May 14 at 2 pm at Henry's Hunan on Sansome Street in San Francisco.

Contact the writer at williamhennelly@chinadailyusa.com