Peter Chang’s flagship restaurant is closing.
Opened in 2011, Charlottesville’s Peter Chang China Grill was the first restaurant to bear the name of the famously elusive Szechuan chef whose following includes admirers in The New York Times, Bon Appétit, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Oxford American, and The Economist. Almost as soon as he opened its doors, food lovers flocked to Charlottesville. The buzz spread up and down the East Coast. From there, the Peter Chang empire of restaurants began, with expansion through Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C., and beyond.
Here in Charlottesville, Chang presided over some of the most memorable feasts I have ever experienced. After one such meal, a multi-course affair in 2014 attended by some of Charlottesville’s best chefs, C&O Chef Dean Maupin said: “I was entirely blown away by the food, especially the depth of flavor and level of consistent execution of it.” It’s that type of cooking that made Peter Chang China Grill an industry favorite for so long…