Tracy Chang is chef-owner of Pagu in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is a Boston College alum, with a B.S. in finance, and holds certificates in pâtisserie from Le Cordon Bleu Paris. She trained with three-star Michelin chef Martin Berasategui in San Sebastian, Spain, and worked on his television programming, communications, and public relations. She is also a teaching fellow at the Harvard Science & Cooking Program, founded by Chef Ferran Adria. Prior to Pagu, she founded a pop-up restaurant, Guchi’s Midnight Ramen, and hosted events with restaurants, startups, nonprofits, and universities. She is an alum of the James Beard Foundation Bootcamp for Policy & Change and a 2020 James Beard Best Chef Northeast nominee. During Covid-19, she co-founded two nonprofit initiatives, Off Their Plate (OTP) and Project Restore Us (PRU). OTP serves meals to healthcare workers in Covid-19 wards, while providing economic relief to restaurant employees. The initiative expanded to nine cities nationwide, raised $6+ million, and restored $3+ million for essential hospitality workers. The standard operating procedures (SOPs) she created for her restaurant PAGU, as well as for Off Their Plate, have been compiled into a comprehensive guide by the James Beard Foundation and the Aspen Institute. Project Restore Us employs restaurant essential workers to pack groceries for essential worker families in high covid, low income neighborhoods of Boston. The groceries are safely delivered to each home with a network of volunteer drivers. In six weeks, PRU delivered more than 100,000 pounds of food to 600+ households. Tracy’s work with OTP and PRU has garnered her international recognition, and the Basque Culinary Center named her the among the top 10 nominees of its Basque Culinary World Prize. She is a 2020 Star Chefs Boston Rising Star. (Cambridge, MA) @gopagu

(Photo Credit: Colin Raney)