Chef Tian
A Vancouver, Canada-based Chinese restaurant expands from LA to Irvine, offering fine Hunan dishes
After a number of years that saw little improvement in Orange County’s Chinese restaurant community – and some noteworthy closures – the mid-2020s have seen multiple regional specialists open either all-new or chain outpost locations here, including quite a few in Irvine. Hailing from Richmond, British Columbia, Hunan specialist Chef Tian (known in Canada as Chef Tian’s) first crossed into the U.S. with a City of Industry location in July 2025, followed one year later by an opening at Irvine’s Heritage Plaza, replacing long-time Mexican comfort food spot Super Mex next to ROL Hand Roll Bar, Súp Noodle Bar, and Kitakata Ramen Ban Nai. This new restaurant offers an authentically Chinese menu that overlaps similarly young, Hunan-focused HN Chiliking and rustic Sichuan-based Spicy Master, but requires less spice tolerance to enjoy.
(“Less” is a relative term here. Like both of those restaurants, Chef Tian makes a fairly big deal out of its seasoning: There’s a yellow and red pepper mascot immediately outside the front door, and a freezer inside so guests can take free chocolate ice cream popsicles to help soothe their burning tongues. As marketing goes, these gestures might draw some attention away from the plaza’s earlier Chinese restaurants Spicy City and Kirin Noodle House, but based on our experience, fans of spicy Chinese food won’t find Tian’s dishes to be particularly hot.)
With seating for around 50 people, Chef Tian’s new dining room is clean and modern without much flash, notably sporting a large bar near the front with a collection of surprisingly premium Asian liquors. Wooden tables have their own napkin and silverware drawers facing aisles, and though ordering is primarily handled with QR codes and smartphones, traditional laminated menus and servers are available as alternatives. Dishes range from $8 to $129, though the vast majority of items are $20 to $25, with fish ($46), market-priced seafood (lobster, geoduck, tiger grouper) and soft-shell turtle ($129) representing the higher end of the scale. Beef, pork rib, chicken, and veggie dishes are all in the $15 to $25 range.
All the items we tried on our first visit were good rather than great, even though we intentionally selected items Chef Tian recommends or calls “specialties.” A highlight was the signature Hunan stir-fried baby abalone and sliced pork ($20), served in a presentation wok above a Sterno-flamed grill to keep the temperature high. Though the dish’s spice level was only a step or two above mild, the dual proteins and green peppers were fresh, plentiful, and lightly crisped at the edges by the flame and an oily sauce. Red chilis shown in Chef Tian’s official photography where nowhere to be found, however, leaving us wondering whether the restaurant could actually deliver any heat.
Fern root noodles in garlic vinegar sauce ($11) were a few dollars less expensive but also less impressively flavored and appointed than the same dish at Spicy Master – a nice but not huge bowl of lukewarm, sour and lightly spiced purplish noodles with scant green onions, minced garlic, and sliced peppers as garnishes. Crispy stinky tofu ($8/five pieces, $13/10 pieces) is a small bowl with black, deep-fried tofu chunks that had little ‘stink’ to our palates but nice alternating spongy interiors and crusty shells, with another lightly spicy chili/garlic/onion sauce adding flavor. It was a fine snack and not particularly expensive, but also not particularly memorable.
Many other dishes – pickled chili crunchy beef aorta, stir-fried cured beef, slow-cooked chicken in fragrant camellia oil, and spicy stir-fried sea conch slices – are reputed (from the City of Industry location) to have stronger heat levels, though our server struggled a bit to name a truly spicy dish on the menu when asked. He suggested wok-fried angus beef with garlic and homemade sauce ($25) as likely to be hotter, asking whether we’d prefer to take it home or order it next time, and though we could have eaten a bit more, we decided to hold off on ordering anything else.
Although we weren’t initially sure whether we’d return for a second round at Chef Tian, we’ll admit to being intrigued enough by some of those supposedly spicy dishes that we’d like to see whether they’re more peppery or otherwise impressive than what we ordered. Our view at this point is that this new restaurant is likely less of a standout by Orange County standards than it is in either Canada or the City of Industry, though everything we had (including the chocolate popsicle at the end) was pretty good if you can look past the spice-related hype. Having skipped fish and seafood, our bill was pretty reasonable, and there’s plenty more to explore in the future. If we return, we’ll update this article with additional details and photos.
Stats
Price: $$
Service: Tablet/Table
Open Since: 2023 (Canada), 2026 (OC)
Address
14370 Culver Dr.
Irvine, CA 92604
949.932.0057
Instagram: @cheftian_usa, @chef_tian10