photograph by Ben Rollins 
First, there was Gu ’ s Bistro, which opened in December 2010 in a thinly populate Buford Highway shopping center just outside the Perimeter—and promptly ignited a debate as to whether szechwan color bearer Tasty China had finally been dethroned. Gu ’ s Bistro was formidable in endowment, manned by Yiquan Gu, a veteran chef with portentous restaurant experience on the West Coast and beyond ; his wife, Qiongyao Zhang, who was exceed of her class in culinary school in the class ’ sulfur native Chengdu, the capital of China ’ s Sichuan province ; and their daughter, Yvonne, who ’ d earned two nurse degrees and had agreed to switch gears to help her syndicate. The restaurant owed its achiever in partially to a combination of serious cook skills and an ability—mostly Yvonne ’ s—to connect with the clientele.
Zahed Khan first came to Gu ’ s Bistro as a customer. When the soft-spoken, half-Indian, half-Iranian Georgia Tech grad couldn ’ t find a web site for the restaurant, he volunteered to help launch one. He besides ended up tweaking the menu ’ s wording to make it more customer-friendly ( “ I told them not to put the words ‘ black fungus ’ on the menu, ” he remembers ). finally, the Oklahoma-born, Singapore-raised Khan married the daughter of the firm. Everything was going gangbusters .
photograph by Ben Rollins In 2015, concisely before their lease was up for reclamation, the family decided to close the restaurant. Chef Gu, who was nearing 60, didn ’ triiodothyronine attend himself cooking a 100-item menu for another ten. Yvonne Gu Khan and her conserve had a plan for keeping her parents ’ bequest going : Gu ’ south Dumplings, a basic counterpunch with a simplified menu in the hip environs of Krog Street Market. The half-moon dumplings at the market stall became a collision, but they weren ’ thymine enough to console diners who ’ five hundred fallen under the spell of chef Gu ’ s many Chengdu delicacies. It turns out that vitamin a much as customers missed chef Gu ’ s food, “ Dad missed cook, ” Gu Khan says. A comeback was inevitable. once again, the family leased a space on Buford Highway, closer to township and in a better location than the original. last November, they returned to culinary class with Gu ’ mho Kitchen, a more modern-looking attic and dumpling house than Gu ’ randomness Bistro, initially with painfully short hours ( so as not to overwhelm the kitchen ). Gu Khan and her husband heralded the retort of Gu ’ second with an Instagram-ready invention : a little but heavy stainless-steel rack into which two slightly downward-angled chopsticks are inserted. If it doesn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate sound terribly concern, consider that, when it lands on the table draped with cold, thinly Chengdu noodles slippery with chili oil ( one of the restaurant ’ second specialties ), it looks as if a ghost is holding those chopsticks, a mouthful of noodles eerily suspended in the air out. Everyone who came in merely had to order it—and share photos of it, of course—and the restaurant was launched .
photograph by Ben Rollins such newfangled promotion contraptions would be of small consequence if not for the quality of the fudge. While some of the dishes, such as the aforesaid ones, use the finest mark of commercially available taiwanese noodles, Qiongyao Zhang rolls the stiff boodle by hand for the ropy, chewy ones that are among Chengdu ’ s best-known street foods. Rolling bowling pin in hand, the matriarch shapes her boodle into a thick rectangle and cuts each attic cleanly with a cleaver. She then gently stretches them before laying them in a half-sheet pan, where they wiggle always so slightly before coming to a perch. In addition to seeking out the noodles, longtime fans and eager millennials come to Gu ’ s Kitchen in droves for the Zhong-style dumplings, a 100-year-old recipe originating in Chengdu, prepared casual in a separate room in the back of the restaurant. In this cool quad, separate from the viciously hot chief kitchen, you ’ ll find Zhang and her assistants making piles and piles of pork barrel, wimp, or vegetable fillings for the celebrated dumplings, served in slenderly sweet sauce that ’ second red from the housemade chili anoint.
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Under coerce from his followers, many of whom were master customers ( and besides because he can ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate aid himself ), chef Gu has taken to adding dishes to the menu. Tea-smoked hedge, smoked pork barrel tongue, baby bok choy with Chinese mushrooms, and dozens of other delights have joined the core dishes. A second placement of Gu ’ randomness Dumplings is about to open in the Halcyon multi-use development north of Alpharetta, but Buford Highway is the mothership. Standing in the modern and efficient kitchen with several giant star woks, chef Gu approaches his craft with the same energy that has motivated him since he started cooking at 18. “ My forefather and mother are identical proud of their Chengdu techniques, ” says Gu Khan, who, along with her husband and three daughters ( including an baby ), is posted up at Gu ’ s Kitchen more much than not. “ It ’ s all about the family. ” 4897 Buford Highway, Chamblee, 470-299-2388 This article appears in our October 2019 issue .
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