19Market, San Jose

As a child, Hanna Pham watched her mother cook traditional dishes in their family's kitchen in Vietnam, measuring the aromatic spices and cooking marinated shaking beef in her wok. Though she was named one of 11 Top Female Chefs in the Bay Area by the Wave magazine in 2007, Pham first worked as a graphic designer and later as an international professional singer before opening Clay Pot, a traditional Vietnamese restaurant. After noticing the youthfulness of the area, Pham decided to transform the Clay Pot into the contemporary 19Market, adding a modern Californian twist to her Vietnamese dishes to complement the new décor of earthy tones and dark wood accents.

In the kitchen, Chef Pham draws on her roots as she prepares her signature shaking beef, which she learned from her mother, tossing cubes of filet mignon in a wok with onions, garlic, and black pepper. In the dining room, patrons sip house cocktails such as the lychee martini or glasses of wine from the extensive list while listening to the melodic scales of live jazz music.