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Yia Vang joins Five Rules for the Good Life this week to share lessons from the line and reflections from his incredible journey in food. Chef, storyteller, and champion of Hmong cuisine, Yia opens up about what it means to cook with purpose, lead a team, and feed a community. We talk family meal, kitchen language, and how to stay curious no matter where you are in your culinary path. And for the first time, he’s bringing that passion to The Chef Assembly in Los Angeles on October 20th. Catch him cooking live and sharing stories from the heart—tickets available here and more info at thechefassembly.com.

I’ve loved watching Yia’s story unfold over the last few years—from the early pop-ups to the full realization of Vinai. He’s one of those chefs who truly cooks from the heart, channeling personal history, cultural legacy, and deep care into every dish. His food doesn’t just taste good; it means something. You can feel the weight of tradition and the joy of discovery in every bite. He’s doing the work of telling the Hmong American story plate by plate, and it’s been amazing to see how that voice has grown louder, prouder, and more confident over time.

The Chef Assembly makes its annual LA stop on October 20th, with an impactful lineup of chefs and other culinary luminaries. The event will be held at ChowNow HQ and provide an inclusive space for connection between LA-based chefs, journalists, and industry colleagues from across the country and abroad. Supported by Resy, an American Express company, The Chef Assembly LA will consist of six panels, multiple delicious meal breaks, and a reception!

Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with my buddy, Yia Vang, who’s the chef and owner of Vinay Restaurant and the host of some incredible cooking shows like Relish on PBS. He’ll also be in Los Angeles on October 20th for the Chef Assembly, where he’ll be cooking up some food and sharing his love and thoughts on Hmong cuisine. Today, he shares his five rules for being a good line cook. He talks about the importance of learning the shared language of the kitchen, how sharing a meal is more than just about eating together, and the best way to grow is to keep yourself curious. So let’s get into the rules.

Yia, so great to see you and sit down with you. Congratulations, two stars in the New York Times. What an achievement. I loved seeing your face and your name in the article. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. I felt good about what the write-up was. I’m glad that I didn’t know when they came in. So that was good. Yeah, it’s a nice thing to wake up and open up the paper and see yourself end of this morning. You and I first shot together almost about seven or eight years ago now. You’ve been on your journey as a chef for quite a long time. Do you remember how it first felt when you stepped on the line at a restaurant?

I remember my first line cook job, it was Italian Americano place. It was the kitchen manager literally was like, hey, do you know how to cook steaks? And I’m like, yeah, I think so. And he literally took me to the grill and was like, okay, you’re going to be making steaks all night. You know, the little thing, the whole like on your palm, rare, medium, rare, medium well, you know. Sure, yeah, and when you press your palm and you put your fingers together like he showed me real quick this is how you figure it out and then it’s like oh tickets are coming in get going and that was pretty much it and i just kind of turned it into a game in my head where i’m like okay here are the hot spots get the ticket time down and that’s kind of how i started with literally thrown into the deep end there’s no better place to learn how to swim than the deep end. Yeah or drown or drown or drown or drown.

Getting started as a line cook is such a good entry point. How much of it was learning on the line? How much did you know? What do you think is a base level that people should know before they step into that role? Some of my first cooking jobs were just prep, peeling potatoes and, you know, washing me as a dish kid, you know? I worked at this racetrack where literally I put the burgers at the end of the conveyor belt and I picked it up on the other end, you know, when it goes through the broiler. My first experience on the line was tough because nobody was really communicating with each other. You would just expect to know stuff. But even now I get to run a line and in our restaurant, we’re constantly communicating each other. You know, I always tell the guys over communicate, over communicate. Even if you’re saying, hey, two minutes on the fried rice, it’s like awesome. Over communicate so that we’re all on the same page to get everything out. I learned that by being on some bad lines. Right, right, right, right, right. I can tell people there’s always a conductor. There’s always one person who leads the charge. So let’s all follow him or her. I tell people that life is kind of like working on the line. Know how to prep enough for the night, but also enough that if it does go over crazy, you’re not running to the back to prep some more while you work.

Now that you’ve learned so much by being both on bad lines and good lines and now your own line, what do you look for when you’re hiring a line cook? The acronym I always have in the back of my mind when I look for people to come work on the line for us, it actually spells out the word FAT, F-A-T, right? So you’re looking for someone who’s F, faithful. They’re going to show up every day. And when they come in, they’re going to be coming in ready. A is accountable. They’re accountable for their actions. So if sometimes they mess up something, just tell us, hey, I messed this up. Awesome. There’s nothing so bad that you can do that we can’t unfix it or help. And in T, it’s trainable. We want them to be able to come with an empty mind to be able to be trained. So it’s just FAT, faithful, accountable, trainable.

Having this wealth of knowledge and this experience and your openness to teach people who want to learn how to be a line cook is really exciting because you’ve been there, you’ve grown, and they’re giving it back, which is why I am so excited that you’re going to share your five rules for being a good line cook. Now, anyone who’s ever worked in a restaurant or been in back of the house knows that there are so many specific terms and ways that people talk to each other when they’re cooking, which ties directly into your rule number one.

Rule number one is food is a universal language we use to speak to each other every day. I firmly believe in that. I believe that every cook, everybody who comes in and cooks, we already know this language. We’re using it every day. For example, a lot of our cooks are Latinos. I don’t really speak good Spanish. When I say I don’t speak good Spanish, I don’t speak Spanish at all. I know a few phrases. We’re definitely speaking two different languages but tell ralphie this is how we like this cut to be or if i’m talking to patricio and i say hey this is how i want you to do the grill they understand that because we speak food first before any other language.

That bond, that coming together, it obviously happens when you’re working and when you’re in the weeds. That type of companionship and being together extends beyond when you’re working. What’s your rule number two? Rule number two is never eat lunch alone. And when I say lunch, what I really mean is never eat family meal alone. I’ve been in the restaurant so long that we just have family meal. Family meal is part of what we do, right? People who aren’t in the restaurant world, they will look at me and go, so every day you guys eat together or you guys do a family meal together? I’m like, yeah. The one thing I love watching is all our cooks, our AM cooks before they leave, our PM cooks before they start, we all gather and then we just sit at the big table together and we just eat together. It’s so cool. It’s just this beautiful picture of all these chefs in their black shirt and they’re just eating together. And when they’re done in unison, they get up, they clear the table, they put on the aprons and they hop on the line and get ready. And it’s so incredible because I feel like that’s the most important part of building that team is eating together.

Because you all work together and you eat together, doesn’t always mean you’re always going to see eye to eye. Absolutely. Your third rule encourages people who are on the line to ask questions first before they make a change. What is your rule number three? Rule number three is before you take down a fence, ask yourself why it was put there in the first place. It was a quote I heard a long time ago. I’m like, that’s so true. Because I think that especially young cooks are always thinking, I have an idea. I have an idea. And I remember as a very young person, my freshman year of college, I would have all these ideas. And I remember I had a mentor who said, hey, man, I don’t doubt that one day you’re going to be a leader. I don’t doubt that one day people are going to listen to you. But right now, it’s time to soak things in. And what I loved about what he said to me both in that moment, really in the trajectory of this 18-year-old kid. You have to ask, why are there certain boundaries that were set? And not saying to stay within the boundaries, but learn how to say, hey, if we need to move this fence, well, let’s realize why this fence was put here at this spot. There was a reason for it. Let’s figure out where that reason is before we start going, oh, well, I just kicked this fence down. Who cares? And that’s like cooking. Cooking, you have these base, these structures that we cook within. You have to have it. How you make your sauce, how you sear a steak, how you make rice. There’s these bases that you work on it. To say that, oh, well, I’m going to do it this way now, well, you just totally took out the base of what you’re supposed to do. With young cooks, I always just tell, hey, take a pause, ask questions if you don’t understand, and ask why we’re doing it this way.

Asking for help and giving help are two great ways to teach and to learn, but there is an appropriate time for it. Your fourth rule focuses on having this shared mentality and stepping on the line. It’s a quote again from Erwin McManus. He’s a speaker and one of the things he says is courage is not the absence of fear, it’s the absence of self. And I really love that idea that to have courage doesn’t mean, oh, I’m not afraid to do this. No, you can be totally be afraid and still have courage. Courage and fear lives in the same realm and it’s okay. But it’s actually the absence of self. It’s actually you thinking about where it’s like, hey, it’s not about me anymore, right? So what I always say to our team when we have a big night, we look at our team and I say, hey, whatever comes through those doors tonight, whoever comes through those doors tonight, we’re going to get through this evening if we work together. That’s where we draw our courage from. Yes, it’s going to get busy. Yes, it’s going to get chaotic. Yes, people are going to fight. Yes, people are going to argue about certain things. But we have to remember that this is not just us here. This idea that if you want to be a good line cook, you got to know that you’re part of a team.

One of my favorite things about being on a good team is the trust that you build between the people that you work with. When there’s that trust and that support, it allows you to be open to learn not just from the top, but from anywhere. Your fifth and final rule focuses on that type of growth. I would just say, always be curious. My dad always said to us, you will be a life learner. You’ll always be a student of life. You’re always constantly learning, no matter how old you are. It’s so cool to think about it that way. I’m always curious about something. Even me, very blessed to get to do TV and do production. I’m always curious about it. I’m always sitting by the PAs and be like, okay, so tell me why you’re doing this way or this way. Sit by the DP or talk to our directors, talk to our showrunners and be like, show me that shot. How does that shot look? That’s the same mentality I bring into just not food, but every aspect of my life. Because if you think about what food really does is food brings people together. But we always talk about how food brings people together. But we never talk about, well, when we’re together, what happens next? I think the food is the catalyst into incredible conversations and relationships. Food is just the beginning. And that’s what I love about having a restaurant. That’s what I love about cooking at a restaurant is that what we get to do is we get to spark everything. Having people sit together at a table and we bring food to them. The rest is up to them. Be curious about each other when you’re sitting with each other eating a meal. It’s such a beautiful sentiment. Yeah.

Congratulations on anything. If people want to see what you’re up to, watch some of your show, which has been Emmy nominated or check out Vinay to eat a meal. Where can they go? You can follow us on social media @vinaymn on Instagram and then me personally @yevang70 on Instagram and then we have updates on all our shows and updates on all our restaurants. Well, I can’t wait to see you out here in LA for the Chef Assembly which is happening October 20th. I know you’ll be out here sharing some of your food and looking forward to hear you talk. Congratulations again on the Times and I can’t wait to share meal with you soon. Okay. Thanks a lot man. Appreciate it so much.

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