Joyce Chen (chef)

Joyce Chen
Born	(1917-09-14)September 14, 1917 Beijing, China
Died	August 23, 1994(1994-08-23) (aged 76) Lexington, Massachusetts
Culinary career
Cooking style	Northern-style Chinese cuisine
Previous restaurant(s) Joyce Chen Restaurant
Television show(s) Joyce Chen Cooks

Joyce Chen (née Liao Chia-ai Chinese: 廖家艾; pinyin: Liào Jiā'ài; Wade–Giles: Liao Chia-ai, September 14, 1917 – August 23, 1994) was a Chinese-American chef, restaurateur, author, television personality, and entrepreneur.

Joyce Chen was credited with popularizing northern-style Chinese cuisine in the United States, coining the name "Peking Raviolis" for potstickers, inventing and holding the patent to the flat bottom wok with handle (also known as a stir fry pan), and developing the first line of bottled Chinese stir fry sauces for the US market. Starting in 1958, she operated several popular Chinese restaurants in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Joyce Chen died of Alzheimer's disease in 1994; since then, her accomplishments and influence on American cuisine have been honored by the US Postal Service and the city of Cambridge.

Born in Beijing to a high ranking family in the Qing dynasty, Chen and husband Thomas with their children Henry and Helen left Shanghai in 1949 as the Communists were taking over the country. Chen and her family ultimately settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where her son Stephen was born.

In her book, Joyce Chen Cook Book, she said that she grew up with a family chef who left to cook for her father's friend, "Uncle Li," who became the Chinese ambassador to Russia. At that point her mother and her governess cooked the family meals, and Joyce Chen watched, and she learned.