by Laura Petrila for Pittsburgh Magazine.
Wei Zhu recently signed a lease to open a second location of his much-lauded Chengdu Gourmet restaurant. The 6000-square-foot restaurant will be located in the former Oriental Market space on McKnight Road in Ross Township.Chengdu Gourmet in Squirrel Hill is routinely named among the best restaurants in the city. The new McKnight Road location will be in the spot formerly occupied by Oriental Market, a Chinese grocery that moved further up McKnight Road in March.
It’ll mark a return to the North Hills for Zhu, who worked as a chef/partner at the now-closed China Star in McCandless about a decade ago. Zhu says that he felt there aren’t many outstanding Chinese food options for diners in that part of town (Ting’s Kitchen, which now operates in the former China Star location, is a good choice). So he jumped at the opportunity to expand north.
He’s keeping the Squirrel Hill style location open and will bring in another chef from China to help him run the new kitchen; Zhu will split time between the two locations. “It won’t be a challenge to run two places. I’m bringing a top chef from China, and I’ll be able to train him further here, too,” Zhu says, via a translator.