This married couple shares the kitchen at one of Boston’s top restaurants
"People have this assumption that because we work together we get to see each other and talk to each other all the time, but it’s not the case. We’re here to work."
For an essential guide to the city, sign up for How to Boston, Boston.com’s weekly culture and lifestyle newsletter.Chefs and married couple Deanne Steffen Chinn and Myron Chinn have been working together in some of Boston’s best restaurants for a decade. The pair met at celebrity chef Ming Tsai’s recently-shuttered Blue Ginger restaurant, and they were married on July 4, 2013 — one of the few days of the year when they were both guaranteed to have the same day off. Today, both chefs work for Tiffani Faison, chef and owner of Fenway’s Sweet Cheeks Q and Tiger Mama restaurants. Myron is Tiger Mama’s chef de cuisine, and Dee, as she prefers to be called, is the pastry chef for Tiger Mama and Sweet Cheeks.We talked to the Chinns about how to balance careers and relationships in the workplace and at home, and their favorite places to eat in the Boston area.This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You met at Blue Ginger. How did your relationship develop?Myron: She started working there a month after me. In the beginning, we were just coworkers.Dee: I was a manager, and he was an intern. We started hanging out, and it just sort of happened naturally. We joke that a Red Sox game was our first date without us even realizing it.Myron: Yeah, Ming gave me his tickets, and I needed someone to go with me, so I asked her. A lot of restaurants have anti-fraternization rules, but it sounds like that wasn’t a concern.Myron: I wouldn’t say Ming encourages it, but I think he takes pride in how many couples have met at his restaurants.Dee: We were the 14th marriage to come out of Blue Ginger, and there were, I think, four more after us.Wow, why do you think that is?Myron: It was really a family environment working there.Dee: We all wanted to hang out with each other outside of work, even when we were closed. It just made it easier for people to get to know each other. A lot of owners don’t want everyone dating, and I get it. I’ve seen the bad side of it, too, but at the end of the day, I think Ming’s happy to see people from the group getting married.Both of you are obviously very career-driven. Since the restaurant industry’s hours are so demanding, do you think that you would have been able to foster your careers in the same way if you dated people outside the industry?Dee: I’ve definitely tried, and you can never really get anything going. They don’t understand it. For me, I come in earlier than most of the staff because I’m on pastry. As a manager, I don’t always know when I’m getting out of work — it’s whenever my job is done. I’m supported in the ways I need to be within the industry. Outside of it, it’s really hard for people to understand. Like, I don’t have Fridays and Saturdays off. I’m OK with that, because my career means a lot to me. But when you’re just getting to know someone, it’s hard to explain. It’s also hard to ask someone to sacrifice and give that time together up.Myron: And you just never see the person. We barely see each other outside work as it is. If we didn’t work together, we’d never see each other. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be with someone who works nine to five. They’re in bed, asleep, by the time we’re getting home. They’re at work by the time we wake up.Dee: I think maybe I am so driven because I have someone so supportive who gets it. I’ve always been pretty driven, and the older I get, the more driven I get.So, it’s a benefit to be working together? Both for your relationship and your careers?Dee: It has its pros and cons, but he knows what I want out of life, and I know what he wants. He’s my biggest cheerleader. When something awesome happens, I go right to him, and I get that high-five.Myron: It’s funny, too, because people have this assumption that because we work together we get to see each other and talk to each other all the time, but it’s not the case. We’re here to work. We developed that boundary really early on, because we started working with each other before we started dating. Work always comes first.Dee: Agreed. When we’re [at the restaurant], work is first. And we try not to talk work at home. Once the car door opens, if we’re riding home together, we’re done talking about work. You have to have that balance. I think when people don’t have that balance, it’s really hard. We try not to talk about our personal lives while we’re here.I do try to give him the respect that he’s earned here as a chef. I call him, “Chef.” And he gives me that same professional respect. It doesn’t matter that we’re married. He gets a lot of respect in the kitchen because he earns respect, and I want people to see that I have that, too. I don’t get special treatment, either! He’ll tell me when I’m wrong.Have you conceptualized anything together that you’re really proud of?Dee: Myron has cooked Christmas Eve dinner for [former Bruins player] Cam Neely a few times, and I went with him once, and I just remember them loving everything. It was stressful, it was Christmas Eve, but [Neely and his wife, Paulina] were awesome. It was just really good food going out. It was so cool to see.And then here [at Tiger Mama], Chef [Tiffani Faison] asked us to write the new brunch menu together.Myron: [Faison] tweaked a few things, and it evolved from the original version, but we came up with the foundation.
Bun Cha Hanoi: crispy pork rolls, sour broth, grilled pork patties, lettuce, and herb bundle.
What did you each bring to that experience? How did you balance each other?
Dee: His palate is definitely spicy and hot, so that was his influence—I can sometimes take the heat, but that’s not really me. I also know that when I go to breakfast, I like to have a little bit of everything.
Myron: We really just tried to think about what we look for when we go to brunch. How do we eat with our friends? We tried to think about dishes that were a little different, but still make sense as brunch food.
Dee: And I obviously came up with the “Sweet Thangs” section!
Did you have an extravagant wedding cake?
Dee: My wedding cake was Styrofoam! The first tier was cake, but everything else was decorated Styrofoam. Our cake ended up being our favors, too. We put it in little jars and tied it up with ribbon and a little spoon, because no one eats the cake at weddings. People are dancing, and it goes to waste. We knew we had a bunch of dancers, so it made sense.
Myron: Everyone was stoked.
Dee: It’s actually what inspired the cake-in-a-jar dessert at Sweet Cheeks. I was like, “We use Mason jars here anyway, so why not?”
Where do you guys like to hang on your days off?
Dee: We had a lot of our first dates in Chinatown, and it’s still our go-to. Our favorite spot was Vinh Sun, and we’re so sad it closed. Now it’s Gourmet Dumpling House and [New] Jumbo Seafood.
What do you get at Gourmet Dumpling House? Do you have a standard order?
Dee: For me, spicy beef soup, rice cakes, and sautéed peapod stems. I like the greens. He goes a little more adventurous.
Myron: The Szechuan fish is delicious. And soup dumplings, obviously.
Dee: We also just checked out a new spot in Needham. It’s our friends’ place, called The James [Pub & Provisions]. We know the bartenders and owners there from hanging out at Washington Square Tavern back in the Blue Ginger days. Our friend is the head chef. That’ll be a good spot for us, because we live an hour away from the city, so it’s a halfway point.
Are there any restaurants that have pastry programs that you really love?
Dee: When I want to get a good pastry, it’s usually from Maura [Kilpatrick] at Sofra [Bakery and Café]. She’s been in [the industry] for so long, and she’s still so in it. Her stuff is just good, every time. It can be hard to find that. It’s flavorful, it’s a little different. She’s just good at what she does.
I definitely want to check out Cultivar, Oak + Rowan, and Harvest. Those are my three right now. There are so many amazing pastry chefs in Boston, but I see what they post [on social media] about what they’re doing and I’m like, “I want to come in and eat that!” It’s just a matter of us getting that night off to go and have dinner.
And then you have your traditional bakeries in the North End. They’re old-school. When I’m with people who are visiting Boston, it’s about going to those bakeries—Mike’s or Modern. Getting the lobster tail, and the cannoli, and cupcakes, and cookies, all that stuff.
Where do you stand on the Mike’s versus Modern debate?
Dee: I don’t know! People have their thing, but I feel like I go wherever the line is shorter.
What about suggestions for home cooks? Any great places you go to for ingredients?
Dee: We go to more Asian markets than anything else. H-Mart and the markets in Chinatown when we’re there. I even cook Asian dishes at home for him, which is so funny. It’s not even necessarily what he wants to eat, but it’s so easy, and I’m familiar with the ingredients now.
Myron: We like Wasik’s Cheese Shop in Wellesley, too.
What are you doing for Valentine’s Day?
Myron and Dee [simultaneously]: We’ll be here!
Myron: We don’t really get to do Valentine’s Day in this industry. We show our love to each other every day.
Dee: We’re those people who leave little notes for each other. I’m all about the power of little things. That works for me, and he knows that.
Do you think that’s part of how you make your relationship work when you’re both so busy?
Dee: Absolutely. I get a big smile on my face when he sends me a text that just says, “Love you.” It just lets me know he was thinking about me, and that’s what keeps us going. When we do get crazy busy and we’re missing each other, it’s what we need.
