Angeline Chiang didn’t set out to become a chef. In fact, she spent her undergraduate years studying molecular biology. It wasn’t until she graduated and landed a job in a research lab that she discovered one problem with the career she’d chosen.
“I did not enjoy the work at all,” she says. “I was in my mid-twenties and I already knew that I didn’t want to keep doing it. I took some time to think about it. One day, I decided, ‘I think I’m going to open my own restaurant and work for myself.’”
Trading in her lab coat for an apron, Chiang moved to New York City to learn how to cook professionally. She worked her way up from server to back-of-house, gaining experience at spots like Colicchio & Sons, Pearl and Ash, PUBLIC, and Ivan Ramen before opening a modern Asian gastropub called Banyan Bar + Refuge in Boston in 2019.
Now, the biologist-turned-chef is making her mark on menus in Music City, where she helms three food and beverage concepts inside the Graduate Nashville hotel. Along with overseeing a coffee shop and karaoke bar, she serves as the executive chef at White Limozeen, the hotel’s top-floor restaurant and bar.
“A huge passion of mine is cross-utilization and finding creative ways to use things,” says Chef Angeline Chiang. “Food is sacred. We can’t live without it. It takes so much energy to grow and produce, and it deserves to be treated with respect.”
With its flashy decor, low tables, and lounge seating, Chiang says White Limozeen evokes the experience of “getting all dressed up” and “going to a fancy dinner party at a friend’s house.” The name pays homage to Dolly Parton’s 1989 album and title song, and much like the Queen of Nashville herself, the restaurant is “a little over the top but also approachable.” The menu features playful party dishes and Southern-inspired renditions of traditionally French presentations, like caviar served with biscuits and mussels steamed in Nashville Hot Butter.
Chiang’s culinary style is all about starting with a foundation and building from there. In White Limozeen’s case, she used Julia Child as a starting point.
“We borrowed a Julia Child recipe for soufflé. She has an old, old recipe with a forward from James Beard for a cheese croquette, so we adapted that for ourselves as well,” she says. “For me, it’s about starting with an idea and extrapolating from there. It’s about drawing from that foundation, drawing from the classics, and making them belong in that space.”
Chiang is committed to sustainable sourcing. She also is working to reduce food waste by using as much of an ingredient as possible. That means turning vegetable trim from crudité into sauces, turning charcuterie into paté, turning spent citrus hulls into jams, and fermenting or pickling excess products instead of tossing them out.
“A huge passion of mine is cross-utilization and finding creative ways to use things,” she says. “Food is sacred. We can’t live without it. It takes so much energy to grow and produce, and it deserves to be treated with respect.”
Chiang says she was surprised by the amount of waste generated in kitchens when she first started working in restaurants. An eye-opening experience came in 2017, when she started working at Brigaid, a school lunch program founded by Dan Guisti, former head chef at Noma in Copenhagen. The program brings professional chefs into underutilized school kitchens, where they cook up tasty and nutritious meals for underserved students.
“All of the kids at the middle school where I worked qualified for free lunch, and that was really rewarding,” Chiang says. “It was one of the best experiences of my life, but the amount of waste coming out of institutional food was just mind boggling to me.”
After Brigaid, she teamed up with her husband to create By Moonsong, a pop-up ramen concept centered around locally sourced ingredients. The pair created modern Japanese-style food with an environmental mindsight, relying on underused produce, mushrooms with visual imperfections, spent grain from beer brewing, and other ingredients that would otherwise go to waste.
“We were trying to create this closed loop, working with local food producers, upcycling everything, and trying to minimize waste however we could,” Chiang says. “I try to bring that wherever I go. It takes a lot of energy to find outlets for things that would otherwise be trashed, and it’s something we can always do better on. Those are the values that I’m trying to instill in my chefs, because it takes buy-in from the whole team.”
Chiang’s passion for sustainability goes beyond the menu. She’s also focused on creating a more sustainable culture for her team. That means fostering an environment that prioritizes work-life balance.
“This is a marathon. We can’t just burn out immediately, or else we’re never going to get anywhere,” she says. “I will make you take your days off, and there’s no reason why anyone should be working seven days in a row. I create those boundaries for people that can’t necessarily create them for themselves, and it works out better for both of us.”
Having spent a decade making her way from front-of-house to executive chef, Chiang is no stranger to the grind. There was a time when she didn’t mind working around the clock.
“This focus on personal life versus professional life was really driven by me getting married and having a baby,” she says. “All of the sudden, there’s something else besides work. It was a real eye opener that helped me realize how important it is to create those boundaries for myself and for other people.”
