Anna Nguyen

The Idea

Longmont sits at the center of Nguyen’s work, not as a point to leave behind, but as the reference that keeps the cooking grounded. The practice is built on close attention: to family dishes, to remembered flavors, and to the discipline of cooking toward the first teacher who shaped her palate. Rather than using distance from home as a marker of refinement, Nguyen keeps home in the frame as the place where memory and ambition first met. That same logic carries through the pastry program Nguyen leads. It is shaped around the first-generation Vietnamese American experience, with memory and technique allowed to stand together without explanation or embellishment. The food lands with intimacy first, and only then with precision, keeping the trace of where it came from intact. Formal training at the International Culinary Center is part of the record, but the work starts earlier, in the kitchen at home. From there, Nguyen’s approach moves from copying toward inquiry: observation, persistence, and the steady work of translating family food into something that can be served. The result is personal without being sealed off, exacting without losing warmth.

The Execution

Chef-baker is the role Nguyen carries into the pastry program, and the title fits a kitchen where savory and sweet are treated as related disciplines rather than separate lanes. In her hands, the menu reads as a system of references and intent, not broad gesture. What the dining room receives is not only technique, but a way of making personal material legible without stripping it down. Childhood memory becomes something plated, and private reference is held in a form guests can read. The food does not push for attention; it relies on clarity and careful recall. Hamachi crudo shows that approach plainly. Turmeric, leche de tigre, fish sauce, fermented shrimp paste, and dill are assembled into a dish that moves between acidity, salinity, fermentation, herb, and heat without collapsing any one note into another. It is layered work, with each element left distinct.

On the Record

Nguyen frames the work as accumulation, not arrival: “Really, in the loosest form, I think we’ve been working on it for as long as we’ve been together.” The line tracks with a practice built on time, repetition, and memory thickening into technique. Learning starts at home in her telling, with an attempt to replicate her mother’s dish and a growing interest in the kitchen that followed. The account is plain, which is part of its value. It points to practice, memory, and appetite as the forces that shaped the work, without reaching for a cleaner story than the one on record. As chef and co-owner, Nguyen brings those ideas into a restaurant where pastry, crudo, and charred cabbage sit inside the same inquiry: how to honor a first-generation Vietnamese American experience through craft without sanding away its source.

Signature

Anna's signature dishes include hamachi crudo and cabbage.

In Their Words “I learned to cook at home when I first tried to learn to replicate my mother's dish, and then started to grow more interest in the kitchen.” “Really, in the loosest form, I think we’ve been working on it for as long as we’ve been together.”

FAQ What is Anna Nguyen's current role? As of 2026, Anna Nguyen is Chef and Co-owner. What is Anna Nguyen known for? Pastry. Where did Anna Nguyen train? Anna Nguyen trained at International Culinary Center.