Clarice Lam is a James Beard and IACP-nominated pastry chef, cookbook author, and TV personality. Born in Toronto, Canada and raised in Los Angeles, California by her parents who immigrated from Hong Kong, she moved to San Francisco after high school to pursue a career in modeling, which gave her the opportunity to travel internationally for over a decade while living in the UK, France, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Mexico, Spain, South Africa, and Italy.
After retiring from modeling, she returned to the U.S., where she earned her Grand Diplôme in classic pastry arts from The French Culinary Institute in New York City. She built her foundation in critically acclaimed establishments including Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Spice Market, and as the executive chef at The Chocolate Room in Brooklyn. In 2012, Clarice opened Brooklyn-based The Baking Bean, a direct-to-consumer bakery specializing in all-natural, seasonal desserts and confections that The New York Times deemed “high quality and handsome”.
In 2020, Clarice signed on as the opening pastry chef at Kimika, an Italian-Japanese restaurant in Nolita that Condé Nast Traveler named one of 2021’s best new restaurants in the world; and in 2022, scored a James Beard semifinalist nomination for Best New Restaurant. Clarice has appeared in many shows, including Sweet Genius, Beat Bobby Flay, Food.Curated., and Best Baker in America, where she finished as a semifinalist. Most recently, she was on The Dr. Seuss Baking Challenge in her first role as a series judge on Prime Video.
In the fall of 2024, she released her debut cookbook, Breaking Bao, published by Chronicle Books, which was named a Best Cookbook of 2024 from both Food & Wine and The New York Times; and in 2025 earned her both a James Beard and IACP nomination. At the end of 2025, she joined the team at Kaya in Orlando as the executive pastry chef.
