Erling Wu-Bower Celebrates Lunar New Year – and His Mother's Cooking – with Star Chefs at Maxwells Trading
Daniel Hautzinger
January 16, 2025

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Every year for Chinese New Year, Erling Wu-Bower’s mother used to make Thai miang kham – a flavorful mix of coconut, dried shrimp, lime, chili, and other aromatics in a leaf wrap. Wu-Bower, the chef-partner at Maxwells Trading on Chicago’s Near West Side, describes it as “one of the most unique bites I’ve ever had.”
His mother, cookbook author and food writer Olivia Wu, emigrated from China as a child and prepared elaborate feasts for the holiday that drew not just from her homeland, but also Southeast Asia. “The very trite but accurate analogy is Chinese New Year is kind of like New Year’s Eve and Thanksgiving rolled into one,” he says.
His mother’s festive dishes became foundational memories for Wu-Bower, and were a catalyst to explore Chinese culture, he says. He has been able to recreate recipes for plates such as silken tofu in a soy sauce vinaigrette (try the recipe below), but one favorite has eluded him. “There was this delicious sweet potato and ground pork like hot terrine that I literally have tried to make again and again and again throughout my career and just failed miserably,” he says.
That’s saying something, coming from a three-time James Beard Award nominee who won acclaim at the bygone Nico Osteria and Pacific Standard Time. Last year, he opened Maxwells Trading with his Pacific Standard Time partner Josh Tilden and executive chef Chris Jung in a former warehouse district in between the West Loop and West Town. “I like neighborhoods whose story is still yet to be told,” he says – and his search for new stories also infuses his approach to food.
For his own Lunar New Year celebration of the Year of the Wood Snake at Maxwells Trading on January 29, he is adapting a dish his mother always made for the holiday: five spice braised pork shank. But Wu-Bower and Jung are switching out the shank for short rib and adding stir-fried Chinese water spinach with fermented tofu. “Fermented tofu is the closest thing the Chinese have to blue cheese,” he says. “I’m almost as excited about the greens as I am about the beef.”
The special Lunar New Year menu also echoes Wu’s feasts in its inclusion of dishes from across East and Southeast Asia, thanks in part to the participation of chefs Thai Dang of the Vietnamese restaurant HaiSous and Gene Kato of Japanese restaurants Momotaro and Itoko. (“Lunar New Year” is a more general term for the holiday celebrated across Asian cultures.)
But such crossing of culinary traditions is also inherent to Maxwells Trading, which serves what Wu-Bower and Jung term “city food by city kids.” “It’s easiest to describe in terms of Asian immigrant generations,” Wu-Bower explains. The first generation might have opened a formulaic Chinese restaurant that appealed to mass American tastes in order to build a new life here. Maybe their kids took over and tweaked the restaurant a bit, improving service or adding a few dishes. “And then this third generation – which is what Chris and I really like to credit ourselves as – we want to take what our parents did and the food our parents love, but we want to combine it with this American experience that we were brought up in,” Wu-Bower says.
“We want to be distinct with who we are, but we also want to respect this incredibly rich culinary tradition that we come from,” he adds.
In developing recipes for Maxwells Trading, they often start from a local ingredient – as local as their rooftop, where their building neighbors The Roof Crop grow some crops – or a dish that’s frequently Chinese, Korean, or Japanese – Jung is Korean, and studied and worked in Japan in addition to working under Kato at Momotaro. They then draw on their cultural and professional backgrounds to add elements, perhaps braised collard greens from Wu-Bower’s Louisiana-born father and ginger scallion sauce from Hong Kong barbecue to pair with grilled chicken. Or a griddle bread that’s a cross between naan and scallion pancakes, dipped into hummus or that staple of Midwestern parties, French onion dip. Or stuffed pappardelle – a call-back to Wu-Bower’s time at the Italian Nico Osteria – with Japanese dashi and Cantonese XO sauce.
It all adds up to personal dishes that reflect the lives of Wu-Bower and Jung – and thus couldn't have come from anyone else.
“We’re very intentional about the layers that we put on top,” Wu-Bower says. “We let these traditions and this research come together to form this food that oozes originality. We’re really happy with what we do on a regular basis.”
Apparently, so are critics. Maxwells Trading has made numerous “best new restaurant” lists both local and national, while Jung has garnered a nomination for Rising Chef of the Year in the local Jean Banchet Awards for Culinary Excellence. The accolades are obviously gratifying, but the discussion around the thoughtful eclecticism of the food at Maxwells Trading and whether it represents a new direction in restaurants is even more exciting for Wu-Bower.
“We would really like to have an intellectual conversation about what American food could be,” he says. With Maxwells Trading, they’re starting one.
Tickets for the January 29 Lunar New Year Feast at Maxwells Trading are available through Resy.
Silken Tofu with Liv's Soy Sauce Vinaigrette and Avocado
From Erling Wu-Bower
This is one of my favorite Lunar New Year dishes. Most newcomers to Chinese cuisine don't know that tofu – especially the soft and velvety silken tofu – is wonderful when eaten cold. This is my favorite cold tofu dish. My mom, Liv Wu, likes to serve it as a part of an appetizer station of sorts. This is one of four to six dishes on the kitchen island for guests to nosh on before we get to the hot meal. [Editor's note: Wu-Bower suggests using his mother's brand of finishing soy sauce for this recipe. Her products are available at Maxwells Trading.]
The dish is also a perfect showcase for various types of interesting eggs, both from the sea and otherwise. I have offered a couple of options for you to include some rare and strange ingredients with the base recipe. Don't be scared; while the dish is wonderful without these additions, it becomes downright intoxicating with a few select egg-y partners. My favorite combination is uni and "thousand year" egg.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons premium black bean soy sauce such as Liv, Cook, Eat Finishing Soy Sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons Chinese black vinegar
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons mirin
Juice of 1 lime
1/2 pound silken tofu, cut very gently into 1-inch cubes
1 avocado, cut into approximately 1/2-inch cubes
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 cup cilantro leaves
4-5 large chrysanthemum leaves (try your local Korean market), torn into cilantro leaf-sized pieces
1/4 cup scallion tops, cut into the thinnest rings possible
Optional (choose one or two):
1 tray of uni (sea urchin)
3 "thousand year" eggs cut into eighths (these are intense!)
1/4 cup cured salmon roe
1/4 cup red tobiko
Directions
1. Mix the soy sauce, black vinegar, sugar, mirin, and lime juice in a bowl. Make sure the sugar dissolves.
2. Distribute the tofu evenly in a large bowl that has a wide flat bottom and high sides to hold sauce. Evenly distribute the avocado amongst the tofu. If you have chosen to add some eggs, distribute those throughout the avocado and tofu.
3. Pour the vinaigrette over the tofu and avocado. Pour the sesame oil over, and garnish with the cilantro, chrysanthemum, and scallions. Serve immediately.