The Wok Shop
Tane Chan opened the Wok Shop on Grant Avenue in 1972 and has spent five decades matching customers to a wok. Her first question is whether your stove is gas or electric. A round-bottomed wok needs a ring on a home range. A flat-bottomed one works on either.
Why go
The carbon steel is the reason to come. Chan has them made in Hayward and in China, and stocks cast iron and stainless beside them. Grace Young wrote The Breath of a Wok
and translates wok hay as the breath of the wok, the flavor a well-seasoned pan puts into food. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, who wrote The Wok,
names Chan's the best in the country. Elena Kadvany reported both for the San Francisco Chronicle.1
Chan sorts by handle as well as by metal. A pow wok carries one long handle so a cook can lift and toss. A Cantonese wok has two small side handles and stays on the burner while you work it with utensils. Tara Duggan, reporting for the Chronicle in 2013, watched her run that triage on the shop floor.2
Wirecutter recommended the $35, 14-inch carbon steel wok with a warning about delays. Serious Eats pulled its recommendation in spring 2023 over readers who never got their orders. Chan says there is no backlog.
Order this / avoid
- Order: a carbon steel wok, sized to your stove, chosen at the counter.
- Order: the seasoning talk that comes with it. Chan teaches it in the shop and posts a video.
- Avoid: the mail order. Take it home in your hand.
What locals & experts say
- Tane Chan, founder, to the San Francisco Chronicle, 2013:
Woks are for all walks of life.
2 - Lisa McManus, executive editor at America's Test Kitchen, in the San Francisco Chronicle, 2023, on the wait:
This is human scale and we're used to Jeff Bezos scale.
1 - Julie Zigoris, The San Francisco Standard, 2023:
In business since 1972, the Wok Shop is a neighborhood institution worth patronizing.
4 - Grace Young, walking Anna Mindess into the shop for KQED in 2012:
This is the best wok store in the whole country.
6
Good to know
- Getting in: open seven days, walk in.
- Where: 718 Grant Avenue, between Sacramento and Clay. The city's own Chinatown Legacy Walk routes past the door.5
Verdict
should-visit — Walk in and say what you cook on.