Secrets of the Red Lantern is a bittersweet family saga in which treasured recipes form the threads that bind members together for life. It is both a moving memoir and a dazzling collection of sumptuous Vietnamese recipes, complete with beautiful food, location and personal photography.

Pauline Nguyen tells the honest, difficult story of her family, following the journey of her parents from their homeland in Vietnam on their escape to Thailand as refugees, and then on to their eventual resettlement in Australia. They moved to Sydney’s most vibrant and notorious Vietnamese enclave where Pauline and her brother Luke grew up. Pauline, Luke and Pauline’s husband Mark Jensen now run Red Lantern, an acclaimed, modern Vietnamese restaurant in Sydney’s popular inner-city area of Surry Hills.

At the heart of this story is a love of food. It helped to placate homesickness, became central to the family’s early success in Australia and was sometimes the only language the family could use to communicate with each other. In the end, it was this shared passion for food that reconciled the family and help create Red Lantern’s success.