Meet Chef Dong Liu: The Chengdu Master Who Cooked at the Home of Mapo Tofu, Now Behind the Best Sichuan Food at IVEA

Ask where mapo tofu was born and the answer is Chengdu, in Sichuan. Historical records tie the dish to the Chen Mapo restaurant there, opened in the 1860s or 1870s. In 1990, a young cook named Dong Liu was sent to be the chef at Chen Mapo Tofu. More than three decades later he is IVEA Concepts' Executive Chef for Chinese cuisine and the Executive Chef at Lao Sze Chuan, and he is the most decorated Sichuan chef in IVEA's kitchens.

Trained by a master. Dong Liu started in Chinese cooking in 1988 as an apprentice in Chengdu at the Rongleyuan restaurant, under Yang Xiaocheng, a master of Sichuan cuisine. It is the traditional way a Sichuan chef is made: years at a master's side, learning the knife, the wok and the balance of heat, numbing spice and aroma that defines the cuisine.

From Chen Mapo Tofu to head chef. After Chen Mapo Tofu, he became head chef of the Sichuan restaurant at Chengdu's Jingchuan Hotel in 1992. In 1994 he joined Pengji, a spicy Sichuan restaurant chain, as executive chef, and opened several of its restaurants in Fuzhou and Chengdu. In 1999 he became executive chef and director of dish research and development at Beijing's California Sunshine Catering Group.

The chef who opens restaurants. In 2002 he was executive chef at the Kehuayuan Hotel of Sichuan University in Chengdu. In 2004 he took over as executive chef of the South Congee North Noodle chain from Guizhou, and during his time there it opened more than 20 restaurants across cities in China's three southwestern provinces. In 2010 he was executive chef at Chengdu's Jinyuan Hotel, and in 2012 he founded his own restaurants in Chengdu, including two hot pot restaurants, Chongqing Xiaotangguan Hot Pot and Shaniuchang Lao Hot Pot, while advising many hotels on their kitchens.

Gold medals and the title of Chinese cooking master. His record in competition is the most impressive part of his story. He won first prize in the 2003 Tongwei Fish Sichuan Cuisine Competition, earned the title of Chinese Famous Banquet at the 2006 Xi'an Famous Banquet evaluation, and won the gold medal at the 2008 National Cooking Competition. He holds the titles of Chinese cooking master and famous chef of Chengdu, is a member of the famous chef committee of the China cooking association and of the China Sichuan Hot Pot Association, serves as a China Green Hotel judge and is a senior dietitian. Sichuan Cooking magazine has published his dishes again and again, and Chengdu Food TV, the Strait Metropolis Daily and the West China Metropolis Daily have all run special reports on his work.

From Chengdu to America. In 2018 he cooked Sichuan food in Flushing, New York, and in 2019 he became head chef of Taizong Fashion Sichuan Cuisine in Dallas, before joining IVEA, where the team page lists him as Executive Chef, Chinese Cuisine.

Now at Lao Sze Chuan. Today Chef Dong Liu is the Executive Chef at Lao Sze Chuan, the Sichuan restaurant brand IVEA brings to the region, at 3224 St Paul St. in Baltimore. Lao Sze Chuan opened its first restaurant in Chicago's Chinatown in 1998 and was on the Michelin Bib Gourmand list from 2010 to 2016, according to IVEA's brand page. With a chef trained in Chengdu's oldest traditions in the kitchen, it is the best place in the DMV to taste Sichuan cooking the way Chengdu cooks it: bold, numbing, fragrant and balanced.

The short version: if you want to know what real Sichuan food tastes like, start with the chef who cooked at the home of mapo tofu.