Chef Profile

Bricolage is a French word and, loosely defined, it means “repurposing discarded items into art.” Bricolage is also the name of Chef Lien Lin’s Vietnamese restaurant in Brooklyn, where she and her husband, Edward Lin, specialize in fresh, modern and deeply personal variations of Vietnamese food. From the scaffolding reused to make the tables to the mismatched chairs and the menu mashup of Vietnamese standards with some Brooklyn twists, the French term makes sense.

Chef Lin’s parents were born in Vietnam and fled to Hong Kong, where she was born. Her family of nine later immigrated to Saratoga Springs, an upstate New York vacation spot where very few Asians lived. Most of the food was unfamiliar to the newcomers, so her parents used what was available, cooking everything in the style of Vietnamese cuisine. Until the family started farming their own greens and raising chickens, dinner was sometimes hot dogs with scallions and rice – always lots of rice.

“That’s why cooking is so important to me. As a first-generation immigrant, I’ve lost the language and much of the culture, but cooking is the way I can stay connected to my heritage,” says Lin.

These connections grew even stronger when she attended the California Culinary Academy and was lucky enough to intern with San Francisco chef Charles Phan. She went on to work at many of his Slanted Door locations. Her mentor has a similar background to Lin and no former culinary school training, but, Lin notes, “He has an impeccable palate and real instincts for cooking.

“Charles gave me great advice when he told me to approach every dish as a story,” Lin says. “There’s so much debate in the food industry about what is ‘authentic’ or traditional. The way I cook is authentic to me and to my family story.”

At Bricolage, she repurposes family food memories and calls upon Phan’s teachings to create traditional Vietnamese favorites, like pho and banh mi, as well as a killer brunch starring her father’s Kao Yuk, a soy-braised pork belly, which she turns into hash.

Kikkoman Soy Sauce is instrumental to the pork belly and to Lin’s upbringing. “We didn’t call it soy sauce, it was just ‘the Kikkoman,’ and it was in everything,” she says.