Before We Talk About Food

A little boy grows up in the back of a Cantonese restaurant in Canada. A story familiar to many of those who were first generation born to hard working immigrant parents. 

Home smells like soy sauce, ginger and steaming rice. Outside, Toronto tastes completely different. School lunches don’t look or smell like your peers. Friends introduce him to foods his parents never cooked.

Professional kitchens in North America and Belgium teach him precision. India expands his understanding of spice, generosity and hospitality. Dubai becomes the place where every chapter finally feels at home.

Years later, people ask what kind of food he cook.

The answer has never fit neatly inside one country. 

What Is Third Culture Cooking?

Third Culture Cooking is food shaped by lived experience.

It reflects the journeys of chefs whose lives have been formed by more than one culture. Their food carries traditions, friendships, cities, travels and memories. Like every family story, no two expressions are the same.

At Jun’s, our expression of Third Culture Cooking begins with Cantonese roots, inspired by the incredible and incredibly diverse people, places and cultures that have shaped who we are.

Third Culture Cooking isn't a cuisine. It doesn't belong to one country. It belongs to people.

The phrase may be new, but the experience isn't.

People have always moved. Families have always carried recipes with them. Bread has crossed borders. Spices have travelled oceans. Neighbours have borrowed ingredients. Children have grown up speaking one language at home and another outside it.

The world's favourite dishes exist because people shared pieces of themselves. Long before anyone called it Third Culture Cooking, families were already living it.

Culture grows every time people share it. Most of us are shaped by more than we realise.

Why Dubai 

Dubai is a city built by people who came from somewhere else. More than 200 nationalities have brought recipes, languages and traditions. 

Neighbours exchange dishes during Ramadan, Christmas, Lunar New Year, Diwali and Easter. Children grow up believing that's the norm, because here in Dubai it truly is. 

Third Culture Cooking feels at home in Dubai because so many people already understand what it means to belong to more than one place.

So many of us already live between cultures.

Every Dish Begins With A Memory

Some recipes begin with an ingredient, at Jun's ours usually begin with a person.

Thank You For Immigrating

You'll find those words on the back of Jun's back-of-the-house team t-shirts.

To everyone who packed a suitcase. Who carried recipes. Who taught their children a language they hoped would never disappear. Who welcomed neighbours to the table.

Thank you.

Every city becomes richer because people bring pieces of somewhere else. Languages. Traditions. Recipes. Music. Ideas.

Every meal we serve exists because people moved, shared, welcomed and learned from one another.

We Hope You Find A Little Of Yourself Here

Whether your story begins in Dubai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Chicago, Manila, Lagos or somewhere else entirely, chances are it has been shaped by many people along the way.

So has ours. Every dish we serve carries a little piece of that journey.

We hope that somewhere between the first bite and the last, it reminds you of your own.