In May 2024, doctors told Shirley Chung that the best chance of saving her life was removing her tongue. She said no.
Chung had just been diagnosed with stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma — tongue cancer that had already spread to her lymph nodes. She was 47. She had built a career around taste, around the specific memory of her grandmother’s cooking in Beijing, around 20 years of working kitchens alongside Thomas Keller, Guy Savoy, and José Andrés. Two runs on Top Chef, a devoted following in Los Angeles, restaurants she had poured herself into. Losing her tongue was not something she was willing to accept.
So she found another way. Shirley Chung moved to Chicago and entered treatment at the University of Chicago, where doctors had documented one successful case of treating tongue cancer with chemotherapy and radiation alone — no surgery. Nine weeks, 27 rounds of chemotherapy. Then ten weeks of radiation, 50 sessions. A feeding tube. Pain she described as pouring salt on raw flesh just from drinking water. She rang the victory bell at the end of treatment and waited.
By May 2025 she was in 100% remission. No cancer detected anywhere in her body.
On January 31, 2026, she opened Night Rooster in Dallas.
The restaurant is at 1000 N. Riverfront Blvd. in the Design District, on the ground floor of the same building as The Saint. It’s a collaboration between Chung and Andy Hooper of Hooper Hospitality Concepts — the two first worked together in Las Vegas more than 20 years ago and had been talking about opening something together ever since. The space is 3,500 square feet, dark and moody, with red booths and gold accents, designed by Greg O’Neal of Philosophy Design. It seats 116 across the dining room, bar, and private dining room.
The name comes from a Chinese folktale about a world scorched by multiple suns, where the last sun hides in fear and only the crow of a rooster finally coaxes it back. Chung has said the story means something specific to her now. She knows what it is to go dark and come back.
The menu is personal in the way that only a near-death experience can make a menu personal. The tea-smoked duck — brined for 24 hours, smoked with jasmine tea and Texas hickory — is the dish she’s built her reputation around. The wagyu cheeseburger potstickers won her a Top Chef challenge and they’re on the menu here. Beef comes from Outpost 76 in Sulphur Springs. Mushrooms from Texas Fungus in Arlington. The orange chicken she grew up eating becomes orange Texas quail. The beef and broccoli becomes prime filet with broccolini. She’s not trying to replicate what she left behind in Los Angeles. She’s cooking through where she’s been.
Night Rooster is open Sunday through Thursday from 5 to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 5 to 11 p.m. Reservations at (945) 292-2016.
