After much anticipation, Q by Peter Chang, the flagship restaurant of a prominent Chinese chef, is opening this weekend in downtown Bethesda.
The restaurant will begin service at 11 a.m. Saturday and is now accepting reservations, Sammi Li, a spokesperson for the restaurant, said Monday.
On June 1, the restaurant, which was announced in July 2016, will host a grand opening party, and it will officially open June 2. Until then, service and hours will be the same during the soft opening, but the bar won’t be open, so cocktails won’t be available, Li said. There also won’t be a kids’ menu until the official opening.
Otherwise, everything is set to go for the 4500 East West Highway restaurant on the ground floor of the glass-enclosed Carr Properties building. Construction is complete on the interior of the 8,000-square-foot space, and the menu is ready.
The restaurant pairs authentic, traditional Chinese dishes with a modern design, featuring high ceilings and intricate woodwork, Li said.
“We worked very hard on this project, we put a lot of effort into it,” Li said. “Once [diners] taste our chef’s cooking, they will be happy.”
Q by Peter Chang serves Peking duck, Mao style braised pork, roasted mushroom curry stew, sautéed jalapeno beef, double-cooked pork belly and other spicy Sichuan cuisine from chef Peter Chang.
Chang, a Chinese-born chef who has built an international reputation, has been a James Beard Award finalist for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic in 2010 and 2016 and was profiled in The New Yorker for the somewhat obsessive followers he has accrued over his career.
Peter Chang inside his Rockville restaurant. Andrew Metcalf
He operates a number of other Peter Chang restaurants in Virginia and has a location in Rockville, all of which he reputedly cycles between, cooking meals at each on an unfixed schedule, though he is expected to focus on Q once it opens. The Bethesda restaurant’s name is short for Qijiang, which means flagship in Mandarin Chinese.
Q by Peter Chang will be open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday.
