Editor’s Note: After reporting concluded for this story, Rica Leon and John Liu lost their home in the January 2025 Southern California wildfires. You can support the Chifa family by visiting their namesake restaurant and its sister establishment Arroz & Fun. Head to this list of resources for more ways to help those affected by the Los Angeles fires.
On the eve of Chinese New Year, for some families it is tradition to return to the matriarch’s home for a feast. When hospitality runs in your blood, as it does for the Leons, that means everyone reunites at Chifa, their Chino Latino restaurant in Los Angeles. It has become the beating heart of their lives—a story that began with one woman 50 years ago in Lima, Peru.
The South American term chifa encompasses both a style of cuisine and restaurant introduced by Chinese immigrants, fusing Cantonese and Peruvian flavors. It’s also the name of Wendy Leon’s first restaurant, established in 1975 with her Chinese Peruvian husband, Ricardo José Leon. Chifa (1.0, we’ll call it) looked wholly unique compared to its neighboring counterparts in Lima at the time, adorned with traditional Chinese vegetable paintings, big round Formica tables, and a custom-built arched entrance, a nod to Chinese architecture.
“I cooked my home specialty, and that’s why people came to eat,” Wendy remembers fondly. This included dishes from Tongshan in China’s Hubei Province, north of Guangdong, such as chickens poached in an inky mother soy sauce and spareribs tossed in a garlic-ginger glaze.
Business boomed at Chifa 1.0. Customers called ahead to make reservations without seeing the menu. But after a couple of years, an opportunity arose for Wendy and Ricardo to immigrate to America with their three children, Ricardina, Josefina, and Humberto. The offer was too good to pass up, so they left the restaurant and Lima behind in 1977, with $3,000 to their name.
The Leon family relocated to Los Angeles, where Ricardo managed Chinese American restaurants while Wendy worked in garment factories and cafeterias. At home their children devoured Wendy’s Tongshan specialities, along with Peruvian ceviches, alfajores, lomo saltado, and wok-fried Cantonese dishes she’d learned from her parents and grandmother.
