Every Tuesday, chef Ron Yan wheels a cart filled with 30 pounds of rice noodles from a shop on Grand Street to his restaurant, Tolo, on Canal Street, in New York’s Chinatown. On Fridays, he goes back for another 40 pounds. Although his arms get sore from all of the pulling—“It’s heavier than you’d think”—it’s worth it. Once he sears those noodles in a wok and tosses them with flowering garlic chives and XO sauce, they become Tolo’s top-selling dish.
“I dream about that dish,” Yan, who opened Tolo last fall, says. “Every time I bring it to the pass or drop it off at bar seats, I’m like, I want to eat it, just one piece.”
Born in Yangzhou, China, Yan, 37, spent his early childhood in Toronto, moved to Hong Kong at age 8, then spent part of his high-school years in Texas. Yan’s time in Hong Kong and extensive travels throughout China are what have informed the food at Tolo, which he calls “an all-encompassing Chinese restaurant.” While many of the Chinese restaurants in New York focus on a singular cuisine, like Cantonese or Sichuan, at Tolo, the menu reflects the kind of region-crossing, homestyle food Yan eats on his days off. It’s made up of small bites (such as five-spice boiled peanuts) and shareable plates (fried chicken and braised pork belly).
“I dream about that dish.”
As an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, Yan started cooking for himself because he didn’t like the food on campus. He was pre-med, and his parents had always wanted him to become a doctor. But Yan started to fall in love with food. After graduating from college, he moved back to Hong Kong. Eventually, he came out to his parents. In the same conversation, he told them he was gay and that he wanted to be a chef.
At first, Yan’s parents weren’t supportive of his culinary aspirations, so he gave them an ultimatum. “If I can’t make it in New York City after one year, I will come back to Hong Kong, go back into the closet, be a doctor, live your life,” he recalls telling them. “That was the only way I could convince them to let me go.”
In September 2011, Yan came to New York City and enrolled in the French Culinary Institute (now the Institute of Culinary Education). After landing his first full-time restaurant job at the now-closed Degustation, in the East Village, Yan realized he wanted a restaurant of his own someday. Eventually, his parents came around. Yan’s dad came up with the name Tolo, a nod to a Hong Kong harbor near where his parents live.
Since then, Yan has worked at hot spots such as Le Cirque, Jewel Bako, and Legacy Records. He became the executive chef of Parcelle, a wine bar and restaurant in Dimes Square, in 2022, and now works with Parcelle to curate Tolo’s over 300-bottle wine list.
“Usually in Chinese restaurants it’s either B.Y.O.B. or they have a house white and house red,” Yan says. At Tolo, “people are excited that they can get really nice wine to eat with their food.” From bite-size pieces of salt-and-pepper tofu to crispy fish served with Yan’s homemade sweet-and-sour sauce, the food at Tolo argues that bold, unapologetic Chinese flavors can—and should—be paired with great wine.
Yan wasn’t always sure that he wanted to open a Chinese restaurant, but it all made sense once he saw the space, outfitted with a big yellow awning that advertises the previous tenant, Ming’s Caffe. “We’re in Chinatown. I’m Chinese,” he says. “There’s a renaissance of fine-dining Chinese restaurants opening in New York. I’m glad that I’m part of that.”
Nina Friend is a New York–based writer and editor who covers food, drink, and lifestyle