A Tasting Menu Inside a Prep Kitchen

The Chef

Born in Fuzhou, Chef Ling Qi Wu was raised by her grandma’s delicious cooking. “We were so poor, but she always gave me the freshest things she could grow in her yard.”

Right away, she knew that becoming a chef was her calling. She explains, “My grandma always let me try to cook. By the time I was twelve, I could cook a 30-person dinner for New Year’s.”

Wanting to train professionally, she discovered that women weren’t allowed in professional Cantonese kitchens in Hong Kong at the time. So, she packed her bags and moved to the U.S. to pursue her dreams. First settling in New York, she honed her craft with some of the greatest Chinese chefs in the city.

There, she met Jimmy Ng. Quickly falling in love, he asked her to join him in Austin, where he went to college. Chef Wu went from, “What’s Texas? People riding horses?” to “I love this small town. We’re building our home and our family here.”

The Restaurant

After earning her stripes at other restaurants in the Austin culinary world, Chef Wu opened her own spots, including Qi, two locations of Ling Wu, and Lin Asian Bar (praised by guests like Martha Stewart).

After the astounding success of those restaurants, she opened Ling Kitchen with a deeper purpose: to make her local community feel even more like family. She explains, “Before opening restaurants, every Sunday, I would cook for my friends and family in my backyard with whatever ingredients I wanted people to try.”

What better way to do that than by inviting guests to dine in her own kitchen?  In the daytime, it’s the central prep kitchen for all of her restaurants. In the evening, the space is sustainably repurposed into a communal dining table, where twenty strangers celebrate birthdays and special occasions together.

Her vision of sharing the best ingredients also comes to life, as she focuses on local organic farms. “Austin, Texas is my second hometown. I would use all local ingredients if I could find them.” She reminisces, “it reminds me of when I was little, living with grandma. She had everything in her backyard. We grew chickens and ducks—whatever we needed.”

The Menu

With an impressive tasting menu, Ling Kitchen reflects on Chef Wu’s culinary career and childhood memories. Each course begins with the resonant sound of a gong, followed by the backstory of each dish.

Some highlight traditional Chinese delicacies, like her fisherman’s style bifengtang Hong Kong lobster, silky steamed egg, and sea cucumber—a dish that once made a guest jump our of her chair. "Austin has changed a lot since then," she laughs.

Her personal favorites pay tribute to warm family memories. Meltingly tender, her Grandma’s braised pork belly is served with a quail egg and a 24K gold sheet to celebrate the New Year.

My Husband’s Koi Pond honors Jimmy’s love for his fish pond through a soup featuring fish-shaped dumplings with his favorite fillings. Inspired by crabbing trips with her children, Wu's deep-fried taro root with Texas lump crabmeat features the local catch. “We already have the best crab in our state. Why import something?”

At halftime, guests are invited for a closer look at the kitchen, while enjoying palate cleansers like calamansi shaved ice (inspired by her Southeast Asia travels) and fresh honeycomb (from Round Rock Honey, where Jimmy used to dress up in a beekeeper suit on his dates with Chef Wu).

Other dishes spotlight different cuisines together, like the century egg with prosciutto or dry-aged duck served three ways. For the duck, one piece is done traditionally in a Peking (Beijing) style with hoisin sauce and green onions, another is Western style with duck liver mousse and Kaluga caviar, and the duck tongue is Sichuan style with peppercorn.

Paying tribute to her time training in a Texas Italian kitchen, she also serves a pan-seared wagyu filet mignon. Wu chuckles, “I've been here 26 years, I've turned into a Texas girl. I need to cook some steak, right?”

Still respecting her Chinese roots, her steak is complemented with beef wagyu potstickers on a purple yam puree. She notes, “We're all familiar with dim sum being an appetizer, but why not in the main course?” The plate is completed with jellyfish with basil pesto sauce. “I worked in an Italian kitchen, too,“ she grins.

A “four seasons” dessert rounds out the meal. For spring, Osmanthus jelly, to help with allergies. For summer, hawthorn sorbet, reminiscent of her favorite tanghulu dessert during childhood. For fall, a classic red bean sesame ball. For winter, a Chinese New Year rice cake. Glueing the idea all together is a coconut pudding in the middle.

The Future

A big advocate of mentorship, Chef Wu has trained a number of young cooks, encouraging the next generation Chinese cuisine chefs to cook with confidence.

One young chef who has been by her side the whole way is her daughter, Holly Wu. Born prematurely at only two pounds, Holly inspired Chef Wu to cook with the best ingredients. Since then, Holly has entered the kitchen, making honeycomb crackers in the restaurant and volunteering in nonprofit kitchens in Austin and Mexico.

In a full circle moment, the family’s next restaurant will be called Holly Wu, led by Chef Wu’s two daughters and focusing on Holly’s culinary journey. “We named it with her name because she wanted to thank this community for helping her to survive.”

The Strange Keepsake

As a parting keepsake, each guest is gifted a red box that says 奇 (qi), meaning “strange” in Chinese. Chef Wu explains, “When I was born, they printed out my name wrong, to be ‘奇’ [strange]. My grandpa jokingly said, ‘that's why you’re a strange girl.’”

New memories fill the box: a set of commemorative chopsticks, Chef Wu’s story, the menu itself, and personal snapshots from the night.

“Every day, I'm happy,” concludes Wu with a smile.

Hero image:  Michael He / Dish gong