Soleil Ho (born 1987 or 1988)[1] is an American chef, food writer, podcaster, and restaurant critic. Formerly co-host of the podcast The Racist Sandwich,[2] Ho became the food critic at the San Francisco Chronicle in 2019, replacing Michael Bauer.[1] Ho left the position in 2023, becoming a part of the Chronicle's opinion desk.[3] Ho was awarded the James Beard Award for criticism in 2022, and was nominated for the same in 2020 and 2023.[4]
Born into a Vietnamese-American family, Ho was raised in New York and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 2005.[5] According to Ho, they were embarrassed as a child by the "brothy, weirdly fishy" dishes that their family ate, at least in part because of how other children might react. Ho graduated from Grinnell College in 2009.[1]
As a chef, Ho has worked at restaurants in New Orleans, Minneapolis,[6] Portland, Oregon, and Puerto Vallarta, where their mother owned a restaurant.[1]
In 2019, they replaced Michael Bauer, who retired after 32 years as the restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle.[6] Ho has joked that Bauer, their predecessor at the newspaper, held the job since they were "not even a fetus".[1]
Ho is careful about the connotations of the words they select. A specific example is that they do not use the term "kaffir lime" because kaffir is a racial slur in South Africa. More generally, they do not think that "ethnic" food is a legitimate concept. Ho says "The imprecision of the word—and the assumption that it doesn’t apply equally to people and cuisines associated with Europe or white America—gives me such a headache."[7] They consider terms like "sustainable," "responsibly grown" and "farm-to-table" to be marketing buzzwords that are too often abused.[8]
Ho mentions poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib, food critic Ruth Reichl and newspaper critic-at-large Wesley Morris as among their influences. Ho says that they want to write about restaurants that "tell a story" which may focus on "race, gender, class or the culture of the Bay Area".[1]
They co-authored Meal with Blue Delliquanti. The book is described as a "graphic novel on culinary mentorship, queer romance, and eating insects".[6]
Concerned about their legacy in a high-profile position, Ho commented, "What if I screw up and no one ever hires a queer woman of color for a role like this again?"[9]