Two days before her 99th birthday, Cecilia Chiang is holding court with a dozen or so friends and family members at a long blond wooden table. Everyone is gathered for dinner at the Greenwich Village outpost of the fast-casual bing and noodle joint, Junzi Kitchen. The space is minimalist and plant-filled, the lighting is a little harsh, and the table is outlined by young customers wearing Adidas sneakers and white baseball caps who keep strolling in to pick up take-out orders, unaware they’re in the presence of restaurant royalty.

The setting feels appropriate for Chiang’s birthday party in a way. Without her, Junzi Kitchen—launched in 2015 by a couple of Yale students—likely would not exist. In fact, any of your favorite regional Chinese restaurants owe their presence at least partially to Chiang. Her San Francisco restaurant, The Mandarin, opened in 1961 amid a sea of stereotypical, chop suey–slinging spots and forever changed the makeup of Chinese restaurants in the U.S.

At 99 (technically 98, since the party is happening just before her birthday), Chiang certainly does not look her age, or like someone who spent multiple decades in the rough-and-tumble of the restaurant industry. Dressed in a striped black shirt and tailored black pants, her short hair neatly combed back, and large lustrous pearls dangling from her neck and ears (plus two dazzling rings on her fingers), she is a vision of poise. She walks delicately but purposefully, talks slowly but eloquently, and has a jubilant, full-bellied laugh.

If you’ve read anything on Cecilia Chiang, you’re probably familiar with her legendary origin story: how she escaped the Japanese invasion of China in 1942 and walked six months to a relative’s place in Chongqing, then fled China for Japan during the communist revolution, went to visit her widowed sister in San Francisco in 1960, tried to lend some money to two friends for a restaurant while there, and then was forced to take over the lease and move to the Bay Area permanently after the friends backed out and the landlord refused to return her money. She would reluctantly turn that tiny space into The Mandarin—a beautiful banquet-style restaurant serving the sophisticated Mandarin and Sichuan food (beggar’s chicken, smoked tea duck) from her upbringing with excellent service, a far cry from the homogeneous spots that suffused Chinatown. “I wanted high-end,” she says. “When I looked at Chinatown, I was really embarrassed. It was mostly chop suey and dragons and gold—so gaudy. And no tablecloths, no service, no carpets.” The Mandarin was an impeccably designed space, with bamboo, perfectly ironed white tablecloths, and elegant-looking artwork hanging from the walls.