Verna Gao Author

Verna Gao was born in Shanghai in the 1990s and moved to London in 2003 after her parents' divorce. Emotionally vulnerable and speaking very little English, Verna used cooking as a means of staying connected to her Chinese heritage and bonding with her father. After leading a crash course at university to teach 14 friends how to cook "real Chinese food", and travelling all over East Asia expanding her foodie horizons, lockdown gave Verna the opportunity to share her cooking with the world and in two years @vernahungrybanana has become the UK's go-to platform for Asian food inspiration, with 217k Instagram and 236.3k TikTok followers.