Susan Bae of Moon Rabbit in Washington DC wins the North America’s Best Pastry Chef Award 2025, sponsored by Valrhona.
For many chefs, there’s often a specific moment or memory in their formative years that cemented their passion to pursue a career in the kitchen. For Susan Bae, that memory was a McDonald’s apple pie.
Born and raised in Los Angeles to Korean parents, it was Bae’s attempts to recreate her father’s favourite fast-food snack at home that solidified her desire to enter the world of pastry professionally. After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in nearby Pasadena, she quickly found herself in the pastry sections of a host of restaurants in the Golden State.
Eventually, Bae landed in Washington DC and became a founding team member of chef Kevin Tien’s modern Vietnamese restaurant Moon Rabbit. Here, Bae’s clever creations regularly blur the lines between sweet and savoury and have undoubtedly formed a key part of the restaurant’s acclaim, utilising components often overlooked by Western confectioners.
Bae is also an outspoken advocate for equality and mental health support in the kitchen and uses her platform to push for a fairer hospitality scene. When Moon Rabbit first opened its doors, her department was a one-woman show. As the restaurant has evolved, Bae now leads an all-woman section as executive pastry chef.
At just 34 years old, Bae is one of the region’s most innovative culinarians and a deserving winner of the inaugural North America’s Best Pastry Chef Award 2025.
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