Awkwafina Turns Family Restaurant History Into A Culinary Gamble

Awkwafina has turned her family’s restaurant history into a real business test, learning to cook and staging a one-night version of Lum’s while she decides whether the Queens institution can live again.

The actor, comedian and rapper documents the process in the eight-episode Apple TV series “Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook,” which premiered Friday. The show follows Nora Lum from basic kitchen lessons to menu planning, staffing and the pressure of serving guests.

Her starting point was blunt. “I can’t cook. Like, at all,” she admits in Apple’s official trailer announcement.

Lum’s was a Cantonese restaurant Awkwafina’s great-grandfather opened in Flushing during the 1950s. The family business closed in 1982, before she was born, but its place in the family never disappeared.

Awkwafina told The Guardian that relatives speak about it “like a family member that passed away.”

That history carried risk as well as pride. Awkwafina said her grandmother later ran her own restaurant.

When it failed, her grandparents filed for bankruptcy and lost their business and home. The family spent a period in a one-bedroom apartment. Those memories give the new project stakes beyond nostalgia.

The series sends her to the Culinary Institute of America and across the country. She studies Texas barbecue with Jimmy O. Yang, learns from Roy Choi and Martin Yan, explores the Hawaiian influences behind her family’s menu and works in a Los Angeles Chinatown restaurant.

Those lessons lead to a Manhattan pop-up built around dishes tied to Lum’s, including barbecue ribs, chow mein, Peking duck and a pupu platter. Her grandmother, who helped raise her, became the night’s most important guest.

The show does not hand Awkwafina a finished concept. It follows basic lessons, menu research, service work, branding and the search for a location and staff. The pop-up becomes a practical test of whether a personal tribute can handle the daily pressure of a restaurant.

The experience changed more than Awkwafina’s television resume. She told The Associated Press that cooking is “a world that you can step into anytime.”

She has since started making meals for herself, including omelets and soup.

A permanent Lum’s has not been announced. Asked whether the pop-up could become something lasting, Awkwafina said the idea is “still in the works of being figured out.”

For now, the restaurant exists as a completed one-night experiment and a family story she has put back in motion.