The look of chef André Chiang’s cuisine tends to be as compelling as its flavors. His red grape carpaccio with peaches and pink coriander, for example, is a delicate play of circles with the luminosity of stained glass. Beyond art-directing his dishes, he has also guided the design of his stylish and highly rated dining venues on two continents, including his former flagship, the two-star Michelin-rated Restaurant André, in Singapore.

Not surprisingly, the chef took a lead role in the design of his house in Taiwan, where some of his culinary approaches crossed over into the architecture. His “Octaphilosophy”—a culinary code based on eight essential “elements” he calls “pure, salt, artisan, south, texture, unique, memory, and terroir”—is the core of his cuisine. And purity, texture, and memory could describe his house: a minimalist composition of concrete, black steel, and glass in Yilan County, a largely rural area about an hour’s drive southeast of Taipei, the Taiwanese capital.

Though born in Taiwan, André spent periods of his youth in Japan, where his mother, Tina Lin, owned a restaurant and taught him to cook. Later, he trained in France and the Seychelles, and then spent a decade in Singapore. Along the way, he garnered numerous accolades, including a Diners Club Lifetime Achievement Award and the number-two spot on the list of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, for Restaurant André. But as he entered his 40s, he felt ready to return to Taiwan and settle down. He imagined building a home where his mother could live with him and his wife, Sudarampai.

He chose Yilan for its unique location, with both plains and cliffs, near Snow Mountain and the coast. “Here, I can get fresh mountain vegetables and seafood,” he says. “It’s true countryside—it even has natural hot springs—yet it’s within proximity of Raw, my restaurant in Taipei.”

Completed in 2017, the 3,970-square-foot house rises among verdant, seemingly endless rice paddies. It sits on a 25,000-square-foot concrete platform, a typical construction method in Taiwanese rice-growing regions. Like André’s cuisine, the architecture, envisioned by the chef and executed in collaboration with Lee Design Studio, is precisely composed. The two-story house is an essay in folded concrete planes—L-shaped elements where walls bend to become flat roofs—that are oriented for light, privacy, and views. A rooftop terrace caps it off.

Of course, the heart of the home is its state-of-the-art, open kitchen. “Cooking is a shared passion for my mother, my wife, and me,” he says. Their requirements, which included both gas and induction stoves and two refrigerators, went beyond the needs of ordinary home cooks.

But even in his earliest sketches, André envisioned a sleek, uncluttered space. His solution incorporated a Vipp modular system, chosen, he says, for the way it “hides annoying details and keeps everything organized.” He also was drawn to its stainless steel countertops. “They’re clean, practical, and heat resistant,” says the chef, “and durable enough for heavy use.” The dark steel cabinetry plays against pale quartz walls and black stone floors.

Throughout the interior, André placed elements of his own design, such as rugs, built-ins, and the vegetable-shaped porcelain ceramics he makes by hand. Alongside new furnishings, he also mixed in memorabilia from his restaurants and the couple’s personal collections, including an old Hans Wegner armchair, cookbooks, and vintage Michelin figurines and guides. A glass-railed stairway with open risers leads to three bedrooms and a study, with views of mountains and paddies that seasonally change color. A fourth bedroom is on the ground floor.

In Chef André’s culinary philosophy, “terroir” is the element that speaks most about the land. It’s a term borrowed from the wine industry, referring to the influence of the soil, topography, and climate in which the grapes are grown. And not coincidentally, there seems to be something profoundly “terroir” about an earth-toned house sprouting up in a vast rice field in its owner’s native land.

Project Credits:

Designer: André Chiang