Through her sweet-meets-savoury narrative approach to Moon Rabbit's pastry section, Susan Bae has ascended to new heights. And it all started with a McDonald's apple pie.
Dessert typically serves as a meal finale – a moment of sweet indulgence often detached from the savoury story that precedes it. But Washington DC-based pastry chef Susan Bae, a founding partner of the city's lauded modern Vietnamese fine-dining restaurant Moon Rabbit, is rewriting the script.
As executive pastry chef, she's not only challenging traditional concepts of dessert by weaving in ingredients typically reserved for savoury cooking, but leading a kitchen revolution through her all-female pastry team.
Her creations aren't simply sweet endings. They are acts of storytelling, shaped by heritage, emotion and the quiet resilience of a woman who turned a childhood hobby into a language of cultural connection. Now the winner of the North America's Best Pastry Chef Award 2025, sponsored by Valrhona, as part of North America's 50 Best Restaurants, Bae shares how a love for Betty Crocker cake mix bloomed into a career in globally acclaimed kitchens across the country.
Humble pie
Like many cooks, Bae's path to pastry began as a hobby. A pivotal moment for the home baker came early in her teens, after an attempt to recreate the iconic McDonald's handheld flaky apple pie – her father's favorite pastry. While she didn't quite nail it on the first try, his faith in her talent gave her the confidence to abandon her plans to become a graduate school teacher and instead enrol at Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena, California. "His belief in me gave me the courage to imagine pastry as more than a hobby," she recalls.
Bae rose through the culinary ranks at establishments including Kali, Providence and Spago before taking on a pastry chef position at Moon Rabbit
After graduating from culinary school in 2010, Bae landed her first kitchen job as an intern at Los Angeles' Lukshon, the acclaimed but now-shuttered Southeast Asian restaurant by chef Sang Yoon. There, under executive pastry chef John Park, she absorbed the fundamentals of Southeast Asian flavours while building the resilience, discipline and technical foundation that would shape her career.
That formative experience solidified her commitment to the craft and sparked a drive to explore every corner of the pastry world. Bae worked everywhere from small neighborhood bakeries to artisan ice cream shops, steakhouses and hotels, each adding a new layer to her skills.
In 2015, she joined Kevin Meehan as opening pastry chef at seasonal restaurant Kali, also in Los Angeles, helping the restaurant earn a Michelin star. It was a turning point. "Kali was where I realised I could not only contribute to something great, but help build something lasting," she says. The experience set the foundation for how she thought about creativity and leadership in pastry.
Remaining in Los Angeles, Bae continued honing her craft at top local kitchens such as hip Italian joint Jon & Vinny's, seafood-focused fine dining fixture Providence (No.47 on the North America's 50 Best Restaurants 2025 list), and arguably the city's most iconic restaurant, Spago. "Each job taught me something new – technique, speed, scaling, volume, creativity," she says. "No two kitchens ran the same way, and that adaptability became my strength."
At Moon Rabbit, Bae's creative desserts are designed to form one continous gastronomic story with chef Kevin Tien's contemporary Vietnamese menu
In 2020, Bae – who by then had been friendly with Kevin Tien for several years – moved to Washington DC, after he offered her the opening pastry chef position for his new modern Vietnamese restaurant Moon Rabbit at The Wharf (since then, Moon Rabbit has moved to the Penn Quarter neighborhood). It was there that everything she had learned up to that point came full circle. Under Tien's guidance, Bae's career entered a new chapter – one defined not only by creativity but by community. "Moon Rabbit is where it all came together – John's foundation, Meehan's encouragement, and now, a true sense of family."
Sweet memories
Bae describes her pastry style as playful, modern and "intentional[ly] chaotic". On the plate she celebrates both local produce and tropical fruits central to Southeast Asian culture. "It's a dialogue between heritage and environment," she explains.
Her desserts also serve as a natural bridge between Chef Tien's bold, layered savoury dishes – such as his wagyu beef wrapped in perilla leaves with labneh and fermented honey – and the softer landing of the sweet course. "In Asian cultures, desserts are rarely heavy or overly sweet. My goal is continuity – for the meal to unfold like one conversation."
Bae weaves savoury flavors into sweet contexts, yielding dishes that are balanced and thought-provoking. "For me, pastry is cultural storytelling," she explains. "I want each dish to connect through memory and emotion, to provoke curiosity and challenge assumptions."
A green curry-inspired dessert made with fish sauce-infused caramel is one of Bae's most popular dishes
From above, Bae's green curry dessert – one of her signature creations, alongside tributes to ingredients like seaweed and durian – reveals a thoughtful detail: it's plated in the shape of Vietnam's Phú Quốc island, renowned for its fish sauce production. The design isn't just aesthetic, it roots the dish in the very place that inspired its flavours.
The same fish sauce makes an appearance in an umami-rich caramel, which sits under a craggy-edged torn sponge cake infused with aromatics like curry leaf and lemongrass. The dish is finished with an avocado sorbet to mimic the creaminess and body of green curry, a streusel with cardamom and black pepper to add floral and spicy notes, and a soursop-yoghurt mousse dusted with bright lime leaf powder. This dessert is meant to challenge assumptions about how fish sauce can be incorporated into dishes with an unexpected sweet application.
Bae's most personal dish to date is her ode to seaweed, inspired by a photo of her mother holding her at the beach when she was four years old. Though she has no memory of the moment, she reimagines it through flavour.
The dessert also honours Vietnam's coastal landscapes, transforming a popular ingredient into an elegant dish while also showing its versatility. "It's about taking what's overlooked and showing its worth," she says.
Moon Rabbit's desserts aren't just technically exquisite, but are created to evoke specific places and memories
The dish features an agar-set (a seaweed-derived stabiliser) pandan panna cotta with chocolate streusel, wakame seaweed confit, sea beans and sea grapes (a type of edible seaweed) to evoke the shoreline's texture. The dish is finished with coconut foam and a coconut water granité, fermented rice liqueur and lime juice to capture the brightness and spirit of the sea.
Pastry power
Beyond her creativity, her leadership in pastry is equally transformative. Having faced gender bias early in her career, she set out to create a new kind of kitchen culture – one grounded in collaboration. "Women in this industry are told they're either too much or not enough," she says. "That's why I built an all-female pastry team – to create a space where femininity and creativity are strengths."
She advocates for fair pay, visibility and mentorship, recognising the mental and emotional toll hospitality can take. "True power lies in creating spaces where women can thrive as themselves," she says. "We hold each other up. We lead with both strength and vulnerability."
Bae is a driving force in creating an inclusive, supportive workplace at Moon Rabbit
What drives her now is legacy. "My parents sacrificed everything so I could do this. Honouring them through my work, while building a family here in the kitchen, is what keeps me going."
As for the future of pastry, she sees a shift already underway: "The next era belongs to chefs creating through identity – telling stories that feel personal, rooted and culturally authentic. It's no longer about conforming to European tradition. It's about perspective."
For now, her connection to present day and memory lives on the plate. Through her desserts, she invites diners into her story: one of resilience, transformation and duality. Sweet and savoury, strength and softness, past and present – all in one bite.
Discover the full list of North America's 50 Best Restaurants 2025, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna.
