Eddie Huang wants to be writing. But at the moment, he’s sitting in the upstairs dining room at downtown lounge Flower Shop, getting ready to head back into the kitchen for evening service.
“I’ll say this: writing’s my favorite thing to do, but when all I do is write, I overthink it,” says Huang. “Cooking is the hard hat activity that I need.”
It’s Wednesday afternoon, the day after the official launch of Huang’s new menu for the Flower Shop. But for regulars in the know, his menu is already in rotation. “The friends and family dinner we did two weeks ago went so well that we were like — wait,” says Huang. “We all just decided to soft open it, and just stay with it.”
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On Oct. 30, Huang detailed the new menu in an issue of his Substack, Canal Street Dreams. Subject line? “The Flower Shop Is Now a Slutstaurant.” His objective was simple: make the menu more “slutty.” Reading between the lines, he wants the food to be irresistible and fun.
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Early fan-favorites on the menu include the calamari, Pickled Mustard Green Spinach Dip, General Tso’s fish, “a super slutty mustard sauce Iberico sparerib,” and Hong Kong Black Pepper Sauce Burger. “Some people feel it’s the best one they’ve had,” says Huang.
The chef launched his career with downtown Taiwanese restaurant Baohaus in 2009, which closed up shop early in the pandemic. Huang, who became a media personality with the publication of his memoir “Fresh Off the Boat” and collaboration with Vice (before it imploded), had been living in L.A. for several years. He was there during the 2021 release of his feature directorial debut “Boogie,” about an aspiring Chinese-American pro basketball player in New York. In early 2025, Huang moved back to New York with his wife and young son.
“Coming home has made my writing interesting again,” he says. “I wrote ‘Fresh Off the Boat’ upstairs in my apartment on top of Baohaus, and that’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”
Huang ended up at Flower Shop with his wife on their first night back as New York City residents. Or rather: he ended up at Flower Shop after attending a Knicks game with restaurant co-owner Dylan Hales, who he met through a mutual friend. That friendship led to a pop-up residency this summer, and now a permanent position as executive chef. The menu reflects Huang’s experience growing up and cooking in Florida, combined with the Australian taverns that co-owners Ronnie Flynn and Dylan Hale frequented during childhood.
“It’s Dylan’s and Ronnie’s spirit that is in the walls of this restaurant,” Huang says. “And I just embraced it. You know, it was not on my personal bingo card to open a bar that feels like your Australian homie’s basement.”
Outside of The Flower Shop, Huang is continuing to work on opening his new restaurant concept, Gazebo, with the support of various investors. “ We will figure the Gazebo piece out. But it was nice to just get back into the restaurant business in New York,” he says.
While Huang established his voice through the restaurant scene, writing is still where he feels most at home.
“Honestly my favorite thing to do is to wake up, have a coffee and write. I would write all day long,” he says. “And because most of my day is filled with working in the kitchen now, I really value the time I have to write and it’s very precious to me.”
These days, he starts his days with some writing, and then walks down to the restaurant from his apartment in Murray Hill.
“The cooking has helped the writing, because it takes me away from just sitting at a desk thinking all day and being disconnected,” he says. “I actually feel much more connected to the world, working a job with other people in a kitchen. I talk to the fish monger, I talk to the people at the Chinatown store. I talk to my purveyors. I’m much more connected to the world now than I was the last eight years just being a ‘well-to-do writer’ in Hollywood.”
“There is a big part of me that feels like the universe did me a favor by pushing me down the hill and was like, ‘get back in the kitchen.’ And I’m extremely happy,” he adds. “I will never leave the kitchen again, because this is where I belong. I need to always be doing something in the kitchen, and everything else can revolve around that.”