Mei Lin

Coming Up

Technique, repetition, and line discipline are the throughline in Mei Lin’s early training and early jobs. Schoolcraft College gave the foundation; the first kitchen posts at Detroit Lions in Detroit, Michigan and then Roast in Downtown Detroit, Michigan and Spago in Las Vegas, Nevada put that training into service under the pace of brigade work and opening-day demands. Those roles reward cooks who can hold timing, consistency, and composure while a room is still finding its rhythm. Leadership on the line came next. In 2014, she became a contestant at Top Chef (2014), a setting that tests clean technique, speed, and decision-making in public. That same year, she began working as personal chef at Oprah Winfrey (from 2014), shifting her practice into a more exacting private format, where cooking has to answer directly to one diner’s preferences. Restaurant leadership continued with chef at Nightshade in Los Angeles, California (2019–2020), then chef at Daybird in Los Angeles, California (2021–2026), the role most closely tied to her name now. In 2025, she also took on chef at 88 Club in Beverly Hills, California (2025–2026). She returned to competition as a contestant at Tournament of Champions (2023), another venue where control, speed, and judgment are exposed without cover.

Where They Are Now

Daybird in Los Angeles, California is the primary current role attached to Mei Lin, and it fits a career that has moved through stadium service, opening teams, fine-dining kitchens, personal-chef work, and televised competition. The common thread is not one format but fluency across formats: the ability to shift scale without losing control of the cook. That same logic carries into Umamei XO sauce, a Los Angeles-based small batch XO sauce company that extends her work beyond the restaurant. It places her cooking in a product form built on the same concerns that govern kitchen work: concentration, identity, and consistency. Her influences, as she puts it, map a lineage of chefs and broadcasters she has watched closely: “I grew up watching Martin Yan. Also Julia Child, Anita Lo. All of the Asian chefs out there too, who have made a name for themselves, I continue to look up to them.”

Signature

Mei's signature dishes include Shrimp Toast, Mapo Tofu Lasagna, and Umamei XO sauce. Read together, they show a cook working between reference and revision: one dish crisp and immediate, another built from layered comfort, and a sauce label that has become part of her public identity.

In Their Words “I grew up watching Martin Yan. Also Julia Child, Anita Lo. All of the Asian chefs out there too, who have made a name for themselves, I continue to look up to them.” “It wasn't until after I finished filming Top Chef that I realized I wanted to cook more of the food I grew up eating.”

Honors

Mei's honors include James Beard Foundation semifinalist, Best Chef: California, Winner, Tournament of Champions Season 4 (2023), and Winner, Top Chef Season 12.