North America's Best Pastry Chef Award 2025, sponsored by Valrhona

Susan Bae

Moon Rabbit, Washington DC

Pastry innovator inspired by nostalgia

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, newly anointed North America's Best Pastry Chef 2025, that memory was a McDonald's apple pie.

Born and raised in Los Angeles to Korean parents, it was Bae's first 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, including the much-lauded Kali.

After a stint in Austin, Texas, at the Fairmont Hotel, Bae landed in Washington DC and became a founding team member of chef Kevin Tien's modern Vietnamese restaurant Moon Rabbit.

The DC restaurant has earned a stellar reputation since its October 2020 opening thanks to its contemporary approach to nostalgic Vietnamese flavours. Bae's clever creations that regularly blur the line between sweet and savoury have undoubtedly formed a key part of this acclaim, utilising components often overlooked by western confectioners.

Take its Cà Ri, for example. Inspired by the Vietnamese island of Phú Quốc, it pairs green sponge cake with soursop mousse, finger lime and a salty fish sauce caramel. Another course, simply titled Seaweed, is a delicate pandan panna cotta topped by a chocolate streusel, surrounded by coconut granite and seaweed – her homage to the country's coastal regions.

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, and moved premises in the process, 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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