As Crustacean Leaves Beverly Hills, Chef An’s Legacy Lives On
By Kelli Luu | 08 Aug, 2026

Crustacean might be leaving its longtime Beverly Hills home, but Chef Helene An’s remarkable journey continues to transform Vietnamese fine dining in the United States.

After over 30 years, Crustacean, one of Southern California’s most iconic restaurants, has announced that it will be leaving its home on Bedford Drive after the building was sold. Locals know Crustacean for their famous garlic noodles and dungeness crab, but behind the restaurant’s success is Chef Helene “Mama” An and her mission to bring Vietnamese cuisine to the United States. 

Helene An was born in 1944 in Vietnam, where she was the youngest of 17 children and the daughter of a Vietnamese aristocrat. She spent most of her childhood tasting the food that her mother and older siblings would cook, introducing her to the influences of French and Chinese cooking at a young age. While she enjoyed tasting her family’s dishes, Helene didn’t begin her culinary career until she arrived in the U.S. after the Fall of Saigon in 1975. 

Helene’s mother-in-law owned an Italian deli in San Francisco, so Helene, her husband, and their three daughters moved into a one-bedroom apartment above the deli. The family worked at the deli and helped transform it into Thanh Long, one of San Francisco’s first Vietnamese restaurants. Because Vietnamese cuisine was still unfamiliar to Americans, Helene started to blend Vietnamese flavors with French and Chinese techniques, creating a culinary style that later earned her the title, “Mother of Fusion Cuisine".

One of Thanh Long’s most popular dishes was AN’s Famous Garlic Noodles, inspired by Americans’ love of pasta. The noodles became a top secret recipe that has only been entrusted by a few family members who are allowed in the restaurant’s “secret kitchen”. Thanh Long’s success allowed Chef An to open Crustacean San Francisco in 1991 before expanding to Beverly Hills in the mid-90s. 

It didn’t take long for the restaurant to become a top dining destination in Los Angeles. The signature koi pond entrance, stunning decor, and innovative menu made Crustacean a complete dining experience, which also helped popularize modern Vietnamese cuisine. In 2019 Chef Helene An was honored by the Smithsonian Institution with its Pioneer Award in Culinary Arts, recognizing her as the one to introduce Vietnamese flavors to mainstream American cuisine. 

Today, the House of AN restaurant group continues to be led by Chef An and her family with locations in San Francisco, Santa Monica, and Costa Mesa. For more than three decades, the An Family has helped introduce generations of Americans to Vietnamese fine-dining and as they search for their next Los Angeles home, they have made it certain that Crustacean’s story is just entering a new chapter, not the final one.