Six kitchens, one table. Start with a cuisine guide, then cook your way through its recipes.
The food gathered here spans six related but distinct kitchens — Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and the bubble teas and drinks that have travelled from them around the world. Each has its own logic. Japanese cooking layers gentle umami from dashi, soy and miso; Korean food builds contrast from fermentation, chilli and a generous hand with garlic and sesame; Chinese cooking ranges from delicate Cantonese steaming to the numbing heat of Sichuan; Thai cooking chases a four-way balance of hot, sour, salty and sweet; and Vietnamese food prizes freshness, herbs and clean, aromatic broths.
What ties them together is a shared core — rice, soy, garlic, ginger and chilli appear everywhere — so the pantry and the basic techniques carry across all of them. Each cuisine guide below is a proper introduction to how that kitchen thinks: its essential ingredients, the handful of techniques that matter most, its regional variations, and how the dishes come together into a meal. Read the guide to understand the foundations, then work through the recipes underneath it. If you would rather cook from what you already have, you can also browse by ingredient, and the pantry guide covers the staples every one of these cuisines leans on.
