Deng Xiaoping chef’s grandson on his London Sichuan restaurant and mission to promote the Chinese cuisine
Some of the late Chinese leader’s favourite dishes are on the menu at Zhang Xiao Zhong’s Shoreditch restaurant The Sichuan
If Deng Xiaoping, late leader of the People’s Republic of China, were to travel through time and appear in Shoreditch, London in 2018, he might feel quite at home. Executive chef Zhang Xiao Zhong of The Sichuan, on City Road, is the grandson of Deng’s personal chef. He cooks some of the former leader’s favourite dishes in his restaurant.
“My grandfather was a famous Sichuan chef,” says Zhang. “He was invited to become a personal cook for Mr Deng [who was also a Sichuan native]. I can remember him talking about a cold chicken dish in sauce which Mr Deng particularly enjoyed. We have it on the menu here.”
For generations, the Zhang family home was the Chinese city of Chengdu, birthplace of Sichuan province’s cuisine. Zhang comes from a culinary family and became interested in cooking at a very young age. After learning from his uncle and grandfather, who were both professional chefs, he undertook formal training in Chengdu. Zhang went on to work for some prestigious establishments in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, before moving to London in 2005. He started his own restaurant business and opened The Sichuan in late 2015.
Zhang is small and slight, with a reserved, polite manner. Although he has been in London for some years, he prefers to speak Chinese and apologises for his English-language skills. Despite his impressive pedigree and successful career, Zhang is strikingly humble – driven by a desire to share his understanding of Chinese cookery.
He has become a culinary ambassador for Sichuan cuisine, travelling to the US, Italy and Poland in recent years to introduce recipes from his home province to a wider audience. I meet him on a Thursday lunchtime and he talks me through his fiery, fragrant dishes.
Zhang produces a packet of tiny brown orbs and instructs me to open it. It releases a gust of perfumed air and I bury my nose deeper to catch more of the scent – dizzyingly spicy, with a tinge of sharp citrus. “You won’t find ones like these in Chinatown,” he says, solemnly.
