Yan Yan Chan And PIÑA Collab Supports Soul Of Chinatown Rice Fund

When Yan Yan Chan returns to Sydney, her first stop is almost always the same.

She slips into Room 10, orders coffee and lets the hum of Sydney settle back around her. It’s a ritual shaped over her career, darting back and forth from London to New York, and since high school, she says—one that speaks to how cafés can function as anchors, especially for those who move between cities.

A Hong Kong–born creative whose photography has appeared in Vogue, RUSSH and Harper’s Bazaar Singapore, and whose eye has shaped campaigns for Helmut Lang, Dior and SIR., Chan is accustomed to moving between worlds. Yet it’s in places like this café, she says, that she feels most grounded.

That sense of grounding is at the heart of Chan’s latest collaboration with PIÑA, a tightly edited, two-item menu that draws from her Northern Chinese upbringing and the conversations she’s long shared with the café’s co-owner Andrew around food and memory. Running through to the end of Lunar New Year on March 3, the collaboration is modest in scale but expansive in intention: a reimagined jian bing and a double-matcha affogato, with proceeds supporting the Soul Of Chinatown Rice Fund, which provides grocery hampers and meals to elderly Chinese-Australians.

The jian bing, a staple of Northern Chinese breakfasts, is where Chan’s personal history comes most clearly into focus. Her version, which you'll find at PIÑA, wraps a scallion pancake around fresh Chinese greens, crunchy cucumber and traditional pickled vegetables, interpreted through Australian produce without losing its sense of familiarity. 

“The flavours are a nod to my Northern Chinese roots,” Chan says. 

“The scallion pancake wrap is a play on Chinese breakfasts I grew up with, drawing from jian bing, fresh Chinese greens, and those familiar, nostalgic flavours.”

The dish came together through dialogue rather than nostalgia alone. Chan describes spending an afternoon with Yuvi and Andrew, talking through their shared immigrant experiences in Australia and the ways food, fashion and community have allowed them to build new narratives. 

“Together, we dreamt up what felt like the perfect morning dish,” she mentions. 

“This collaboration came about after we spent time connecting on our heritage, through our immigrant lens in Australia, and how that’s allowed us to forge our own stories.”

The second offering, a double-matcha affogato at Room 10, is lighter in form but no less considered. It nods to Chan’s lifelong love of matcha while drawing on principles of traditional Chinese medicine. Ginger, she explains, was key.

“Matcha has a cooling effect on the body, while ginger brings warmth and invigoration,” she says.

“With traditional Chinese medicine in mind, yin and yang played a big role in developing the matcha affogato.”

Beyond the plate, the collaboration is grounded in community. Supporting the Soul of Chinatown Rice Fund was a non-negotiable, Chan says, particularly as conversations turned to the ongoing impact of COVID on local businesses and elders in the area.

“A big part of the conversation has been about bringing people back into Chinatown,” she says.

“We’d love to continue working with Soul of Chinatown to help support that sense of community.”

Image credit: Myles Kalus