About Us

Nguyen Tran and his wife, Thi Tran started an illegal underground restaurant called Starry Kitchen out of their apartment that eventually became the #1 Asian Fusion restaurant in all of LA in 2009. They continued their Pan-Asian comfort tomfoolery at Button Mash in Echo Park led by their most famous signature dish, the Crispy Tofu Balls.

Famed LA Times food writer Jonathan Gold featured Starry Kitchen for two years in a row on his 101 Best Restaurants in the LA Times, and they have been written up in numerous other publications such as the NY Times, NPR and Food and Wine magazine. They have also been featured on Food Network, Tastemade and many other TV shows, Youtube channel and are social media darlings having gone viral many times over. “Adventures in Starry Kitchen”, their memoir/cookbook was published with HarperOne in 2017. They're now moving onto their next, unpredictable chapter of their lives they lovingly refer to as (SHIN) Starry Kitchen.