Chef Yia Vang - Echelon Guest Chef Series
March 16, 2027 06:00 PM
Join us on Tuesday, March 16th for Echelon's 2027 Guest Chef Series featuring a special guest: Chef Yia Vang
Yia Vang is the Executive Chef and Owner at Vinai. Vang is a trained chef with extensive experience at top restaurants across the Twin Cities. In 2016, Vang started nationally acclaimed Union Hmong Kitchen, a restaurant that features Hmong culture, stories, rituals, foods and flavors that quickly became a community staple in Minnesota. In July 2024, Vang opened Vinai, to serve as a love letter to his parents. Vang spearheads the kitchen at the restaurant and crafts a menu that features classic Hmong dishes that entice people to grab a seat at the table and open their minds to new experiences. Vang has been featured in the New York Times, Nat Geographic, and Bon Appetit, as well as showcased on PBS, CNN, among others. Most recently, Vinai was featured on the New York Times 2024 50 Best Restaurant List and Eater’s 2024 Best New Restaurants in America.
Vinai the restaurant (pronounced VEE-nye) is named after the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand— the place where Yia’s parents met and the place he was born. Ban Vinai, the refugee camp, served as a place of safety, reunification, and restoration.
Vinai, the restaurant, serves as a love letter from Yia to his parents. It serves as an homage to Hmong culture and history. And it serves as a place of restoration, a place where we invite you to celebrate, honor, and illuminate stories of your own through the universal language of food.
Throughout the process of designing, funding, and developing Vinai — as well as the process of opening and developing Union Hmong Kitchen — Yia has been steadfast in his vision:
"All roads lead to Vinai.
We are honored and humbled to open Vinai after such a long and trying process. While we developed Vinai, we were furthering our experience within the Twin Cities restaurant scene. We built strong relationships with our community and we learned so much about how we want to share our food and our stories with all of you.
Our roots of the nomadic Hmong people, moving around and living off what was available to them has been true to our experience in opening and running restaurants."
Chef Yia will serve a prix fixe, multi-course menu for $200. There will only be an omnivore menu and no modifications. A wine pairing will be available to add-on during your dinner; with cocktails available a la carte as well.