Peter Chang (chef)

Early life and emigration to America

Chang was born in 1963 in a farming village in Hubei Province and attended culinary school in Wuhan. He worked on a Yangtze River cruise ship, where he met his wife, Lisa. After winning national cooking competitions and working in luxury hotels, he passed a foreign service cooking test and earned a two-year contract at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. He arrived in the United States in 2001 and cooked for then-Vice President Hu Jintao. Days before returning to China in 2003, the family left the embassy to settle in the U.S.

Disappearances and movement

After leaving the embassy, Chang worked under the pseudonym "Mr. Liu" at China Star in Fairfax, Virginia, to avoid Chinese bureaucrats and U.S. immigration officials. The restaurant offered a typical American Chinese menu alongside a Chinese-language menu with sophisticated Sichuan dishes. Discovered by users of the food website DonRockwell.com and Washington City Paper critic Todd Kliman, he moved to TemptAsian in Alexandria, then to Szechuan Boy in Fairfax.

After a review in Washingtonian magazine, he left Virginia. In September 2006, he was found at Tasty China in Marietta, Georgia; by spring 2007 he was gone. In June 2008 he worked at Hong Kong House in Knoxville, Tennessee, and in fall 2009 at Taste of China in Charlottesville, Virginia. A March 2010 New Yorker article by Calvin Trillin chronicled his movements.

By the end of that month he had left Taste of China. He was seen at Tasty China in Georgia in late March 2010, and that December opened Peter Chang's Tasty China II in Sandy Springs, Georgia.

Stability and expansion

In March 2011, Chang opened Peter Chang's China Grill in Charlottesville in partnership with Gen Lee, a chef and restaurateur. After obtaining authorization to work in the U.S., this marked the end of his short-lived restaurant stays. In early 2012 they opened Peter Chang China Café in Short Pump, Virginia, named by Bon Appétit as one of the 50 Best New Restaurants in America. In September 2012 he opened Peter Chang Cafe in Williamsburg, Virginia, followed by Peter Chang's China Cafe in Fredericksburg in May 2013.

In March 2015 a restaurant opened in Arlington, Virginia, and in April 2015 one in Rockville, Maryland. In June 2016 he opened a restaurant in Richmond's Scott's Addition. The group's website lists seven locations. In May 2017 he opened Q by Peter Chang in Bethesda, Maryland.

In March 2018 he opened a restaurant in Stamford, Connecticut, his first northeastern location, with Bill Xia. In March 2019 he opened Mama Chang in Fairfax, Virginia, featuring recipes by his wife and mother; it welcomed 1,000 diners per day on opening weekend and was ranked #1 on the Washington Post's 10 best new restaurants of the year. In July 2020 he and Lisa opened NiHao in Baltimore. In October 2022 he opened Chang Chang in Washington, D.C., his first restaurant in the District.

Awards and media

Chang was a finalist for a James Beard Award in 2016 for Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic, and has cooked several times at the James Beard House. In November 2013, China Cafe in Richmond was featured on Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods America. In July 2016, Peter Chang in Rockville appeared on the Food Network's Top 5 Restaurants. A December 2019 Economist article on Chinese-American cuisine described one of his soups as "hauntingly perfect and austere as a Bach cello suite." In October 2023, his restaurant Chang Chang was added to the Michelin Guide for DC.