Chinese and Indian Restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area since the 1960s

Abstract

Accelerated global trade and mass immigration have brought rapid change to food culture in the United States over the past fifty years. San Francisco has been at the center of these changes. Bay Area restaurateurs Cecilia Chiang (The Mandarin) and her son Philip Chiang (P.F. Chang's), illustrate how Chinese food changed in the United States, moving out of historic Chinatowns and into the suburbs. David Brown's India House restaurant in San Francisco embodied the way Indian food was understood before the 1960s – interpreted through the lens of the British Empire. By the 2000s, Indian food had broken free of this colonial association and was available in its diverse regional variations – especially in the Bay Area suburbs fueled by the computer industry. These case studies all illustrate the impact of globalization and immigration on American food culture through the lens of San Francisco.