Hao Tran did not arrive in the food world through a culinary school or a restaurant kitchen. She came through grief and an empty house and a therapist who wasn’t helping. After her daughters left for college, she took the money she had been spending on therapy and spent it on food instead — specifically on the dishes she grew up eating, the ones her grandmother and aunt had made, the ones she had been carrying around in her memory for years without anywhere to put them.
She started making dumplings. Then she started showing up at pop-ups. Then she did another. And another. Three hundred and fifty of them over two years, schlepping equipment out of her car across North Texas, building a following one bowl at a time, all while teaching high school chemistry by day and running her own kitchen by night.
That’s the short version. The longer version includes a mother from Saigon, a father from central Vietnam, summers with an aunt who ran a French-Vietnamese bistro in Montreal for thirty years, a brick-and-mortar grocery and café on Magnolia Avenue that she’s been operating for eight years, a seat on the board of Les Dames d’Escoffier, and a restaurant finally under construction on the west side of Fort Worth. Hao Tran is one of the most interesting people cooking in this city, and she has been hiding in plain sight. We sat down with her to talk about Vietnamese food, her community, and what’s coming next.
You’ve been teaching high school all this time. How did a science teacher end up running a kitchen?
I taught chemistry for years, and then a culinary teaching position opened up at my school. I had been helping in that classroom already, and when the teacher left, I thought — why not? I had about five more years left until full retirement. I figured it would be fun. And it is, genuinely, but it’s also the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Arming teenagers with knives is a different kind of challenge than anything I’d faced before.
So cooking became therapy. Literally.
After my daughters went off to college, I was an empty nester and a single mom who suddenly had no one to cook for. I went to a therapist to deal with it, and it honestly didn’t do much good. So I took the money I was spending on sessions and put it toward food instead. I started making the dishes I grew up with — things I remembered from my grandmother and my aunt — just trial and error until I got to a point where I thought, hey, this is not bad. That’s where the dumplings came from. That’s where all of it came from.
Three hundred and fifty pop-ups. Most people don’t know that number.
Two years of living out of my car, basically. Schlepping everything everywhere. It was hard. But that’s how the brick-and-mortar happened. You build something one person at a time and eventually there are enough people that you have something real.
You opened Hao’s Grocery and Café right before COVID. How did you survive that?
We opened in September and COVID came six months later. We went online immediately — turned the whole operation into a grocery store with cooking classes on the side. People could order through Square, come pick up, and because we were working directly with local farmers and ranchers, our turnaround time was less than twenty-four hours. Kroger was taking weeks. We had no supply chain problems. Those relationships with local producers are still in place today, and when the restaurant opens, we’ll be using them.
Fort Worth called you the city’s “dumpling virtuoso.” How do you feel about the title?
I had never heard that word applied to me before you mentioned it. I wasn’t striving for any title. I just wanted to provide something I grew up with, something that wasn’t really here yet. Whether people call me that or something else doesn’t change what I’m making.
Tell me something about Vietnamese food that most Americans still don’t know.
My mother is from Saigon and my father is from central Vietnam, and those are genuinely different cuisines — most people don’t realize that. I feel like I get the best of both worlds. And then I spent summers with my aunt in Montreal, who ran a French-Vietnamese bistro in the old part of the city for thirty years with my uncle. She came from money in Vietnam — her husband was a general — and when they lost everything and came to Canada, they asked themselves what they knew how to do. Nobody had Vietnamese food nearby, so they opened one. That French-Vietnamese crossover is in my food whether I intend it or not.
The dish I want people to discover is banh beo — steamed rice cakes from my father’s side. They’re small, about three inches, topped with pork and shrimp, finished with sweet fish sauce. It’s a very delicate dish, very white, very specific to central Vietnam. We’re going to have them at the restaurant and I can eat thirty of them without stopping.
You’re a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier. How did that happen?
I needed support from women. Some of the male chefs I had worked with — I won’t name names — had a lot of ego, and it was competitive in ways that weren’t helpful. Denise Shavandy, who was the chef at the Modern, was one of the people who really helped me. She welcomed me into her kitchen, let me do my thing, and celebrated what I could bring to the table. June Naylor wrote my nomination letter. I was accepted, and when I do something I hit the ground running — I’ve been on the board for the last two years. My role has been philanthropy, which means I get to give away money. Last year we celebrated the Dallas chapter’s fortieth anniversary and gave away forty-five thousand dollars — scholarships, educator grants, the Food and Wine Foundation, nonprofits aligned with our mission including a women’s shelter focused on providing education and career paths for residents.
What does the Near Southside mean to you?
Everything. I live there. I raised my children there. They were born and raised literally across the street from where I teach now. That’s where I started my career, where I built my business, where my neighbors became my friends. I have no plans to go anywhere else.
Tell me about the restaurant.
It’s on the west side of Fort Worth at 405 Jim Wright Freeway in White Settlement, in a development called Entrepreneur Park. The building belongs to Will Churchill and his sister Corrie Watson Fletcher — the twin great-grandchildren of Fort Worth Cadillac dealer Frank Kent. They’re behind Heim Barbecue and Melt Ice Creams, and they approached me. It was a complete build-out from an office building, and it’s close to done — we’re at flooring and furniture and lighting now. The kitchen is set. I’m hoping to open by end of summer.
The name means “sweet street DeVille” in Vietnamese — it’s named after a Cadillac my father owned when my siblings and I were children. [Crave wrote about it here].
The menu divides the way a Vietnamese menu should — rice, noodles, soup. We’ll have pho, but also bun bo hue, the spicier cousin from central Vietnam. Banh beo from my father’s side. Banh xeo, the Saigon pancakes, from my mother’s side. We’ll have vegan Vietnamese, which I think Fort Worth genuinely needs. All sauces made in house, pork and herbs locally sourced. We’re building the kitchen to do charcoal-grilled pork chops and to make our own bread for banh mi. There’s a prep area dedicated entirely to dumplings. The French influence is in there too — my parents both spoke French, and my mother used to read me French fables when I was young. I miss that more than I can say.
What keeps you going when the pressure of all this builds up?
Here’s what I tell people: if I make all this food and nobody comes through the door, guess what — I like it, and I’ll eat it. Nothing goes to waste. That was always the logic and it still is.
Now for the pop-up. Tell us about that.
Kevin — Chef Kevin Martinez— he’s my brother from another mother. When I was a struggling mom running pop-ups and Ubering on the side, I stopped at his spot on Magnolia one night, brought my own bowl, sat down, and had his ramen. That was the beginning of the friendship. We’ve traveled to Mexico City together, eaten our way through it. He’s been one of my biggest supporters. When we talked about doing something together, it made perfect sense.
He’s doing brisket ramen. I’m doing lobster dumplings. Land and sea. You can get both and you absolutely should. It’s at Hao’s Grocery & Café at 120 St. Louis Avenue, Fort Worth, on Wednesday, June 24th at 6 p.m. We’ll be there until we sell out — and we will sell out. There may be a DJ. Come early.
Do not forget the Meals with Meaning dinner coming up. Read about that here.
Hao’s Grocery & Café is at 120 St. Louis Avenue, Fort Worth. Duong DeVille is coming to 405 Jim Wright Freeway, White Settlement — opening end of summer 2026. We’ve been following her story at CraveDFW — read our recent piece here. Follow @haosgrocerycafe on Instagram for pop-up updates, class announcements, and restaurant news.
