Donia Bijan – Wikipedia

Iranian-American author and chef

Donia Bijan is an Iranian-American author and chef based in California.^[1][2] She is the author of the book Maman’s Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen (2011) and the novel The Last Days of Café Leila (2017).^[3][4][5]

Bijan grew up in Tehran, Iran, where her parents operated a maternity hospital.^[6] Her father was a physician and her mother a nurse active in women’s rights.^[7] In 1978, during the political unrest leading up to the Iranian Revolution, Bijan and her family left Iran and eventually settled in the United States.^[8][9][10]

Bijan studied at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 1984.^[11][12] She later trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and worked as a chef in France before returning to California where she worked at many of San Francisco’s acclaimed restaurants.^[13][14][15]

In 1994, she opened her restaurant, L’Amie Donia, a celebrated French bistro, in Palo Alto, California.^[16][17][18] Bijan sold the restaurant in 2004.^[19][20][21]

Bijan published her food memoir, Maman’s Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen in 2011.^{[22][23][24][25]} In 2017, she published the novel, The Last Days of Café Leila.^{[26][27][28][29]} The novel was translated in German as Als die Tage nach Zimt schmeckten, in Italian as La donna di Teheran,^[30][31] and in Arabic. Bijan has also narrated audiobooks, including Pomegranate Soup, Rosewater and Soda Bread, and The Persians.^{[32][33][34][35]}

Bijan is married to painter Mitchell Johnson.^{[36][37][38][39]} They have one son.^[40][41]