Bun Lai

Eddie Huang
Bun Lai at Miya's
Born	1973 (age 43–44) Hong Kong
Nationality	American
Occupation	Chef, restaurateur
Years active	1992–present
Known for	Miya's (New Haven restaurant)

Bun Lai is an Asian American chef who was born in Hong Kong in 1973. He is a leader in the sustainable food movement. His family restaurant, Miya's in New Haven, Connecticut, is the first sustainable sushi restaurant in the world. His mother, a Congressional Award recipient for her contribution in sustainable seafood, is the founder of Miya's and his father is a Cambridge and Yale University-educated scientist and surgeon.

Bun Lai and Miya's has been featured wide range of publications including National Geographic, Time Magazine, The New York Times,Prevention Magazine,Eating Well Magazine, Outside Magazine,Scientific American Magazine,The Atlantic,Food and Wine Magazine, and The New Yorker,Popular Mechanics Magazine,

In 2001, Bun Lai initiated the removal from the menu of seafood that was caught or farmed in a way that was detrimental to the long term well-being of the harvested species or its habitats. Bun Lai is credited as the first chef in the world to implement a sustainable seafood paradigm to the cuisine of sushi. The sweet potato sushi roll, which Bun Lai created in 1995 at Miya's, is the California Roll of plant-based sushi. Today it can be found on sushi menus throughout the country. The use of brown rice —instead of white rice—and other whole grains for sushi, is also a Bun Lai innovation, which today is emulated throughout the world of sushi.

In 2005, Bun Lai created the world's first invasive species menu. The menu featured locally caught invasive species such as Asian shore crabs and European green crabs. The invasive species menu was created in order to take pressure off of popular over-fished species by utilizing ones, instead, that are abundant but ecologically destructive.

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