YUAN, FOUNDER

 

Yuan is a serial entrepreneur, former diplomat, professional chef and university lecturer ("Entrepreneurship + Marketing"). 

 

Ever since she was a little girl, she would fall asleep with cookbooks – and she still does. Most of her childhood memories are connected to food: The first time she ate ice cream, waiting for waffles, making jiaozi with her family, reaching for a pot of popcorn and getting burned, picking berries or preparing her first “bread” in a gas oven while her mother was gone… and almost setting the entire house on fire.

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If Yuan is not cooking or eating, she is thinking about what and where to eat next. After years of working in international relations and building start-ups, Yuan moved to Paris at age 31 to study at Le Cordon Bleu. It was here, where she became really obsessed with food: After class, she would spend hours reading about the science behind cooking, research the history of culinary traditions around the world, watch YouTube videos to improve her techniques and draw how she would plate the next day. Besides graduating with diplomas in both cuisine as well as patisserie (boulangerie next?) at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, London and Wellington (New Zealand), Yuan has also taken professional chef’s courses and private classes in over 20 countries (e.g. 200 hours on pasta-making in Bologna). To deepen her culinary knowledge, Yuan did stages in a Michelin** restaurant in London, a bistro in New Zealand, as well as with a cheesemaker in Switzerland. She is a certified tea sommelier, studied the art of gelato-making and has an endless list of things that she would like to learn next! 

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Besides cooking, Yuan is also very interested in anything food-related, including food anthropology, gastrodiplomacy, culinary history, sensory sciences, the psychology of eating, neurogastronomy etc. She is currently wrapping up her second PhD at the University of St.Gallen about "food, migration and entrepreneurship", where she researches migrant female foodpreneurs in Zurich.   

 

Her boutique event agency INDULGE offers curated food experiences which reflect her academic research, her gastronomic knowledge, as well as her network of culinary experts in Switzerland. In addition to unique food tours and private supper clubs, INDULGE provides access to exclusive tastings and culinary experiences you can't find anywhere else. 

 

Yuan believes that everything good in life needs to be shared... and she is looking forward to sharing her passion for anything food with you!