One of Manhattan’s Most Ambitious Sichuan Chefs Is Back in Business

Green pepper and preserved eggs

Tucked into a hardscrabble block, Sky Pavilion, at 325 W. 42nd Street, between Eighth and Ninth avenues at the nexus of Hell’s Kitchen and Times Square, is one of the city’s most ambitious Sichuan restaurants, with a list of startling specials, and a version of just about every Sichuan dish you can think of. The flavors are vivid and compelling, with organ meats such as pig brains and cow intestines that are they often omitted on many Chinese menus here.

Sky Pavilion is one of many newer Manhattan restaurants that reflect big changes to Chinese food in the city. Sichuan has become the city’s most popular Chinese cuisine, and Hell’s Kitchen is now chock-a-block with new Chinese restaurants, at least partly due to the proximity of the Chinese Consulate.

The restaurant has opened near the action, helmed by chef Zhong Qing Wang, 52, who came to the US 14 years ago. Before that, he trained in cooking school in Sichuan’s capital, then, under many Sichuan master chefs, he says. Wang opened his first Manhattan restaurant, La Vie en Szechuan, around 2008, later earned rave reviews from the New York Times, and closed during the pandemic (He also owned Sichuan Manor).

Sky Pavilion faces the Port Authority in Hell’s Kitchen.

Bright lights, big city.

Back at Sky Pavilion, past the glass-fronted entrance, the room is spare, boxy, and brightly lit. Paper fans on one wall constitute the most prominent decoration. Yet, as plain as the room is, the food itself is often elaborately presented, sometimes on wooden or ceramic platforms sprouting carved vegetables or plastic flowers. Here are five incredible dishes my posse and I enjoyed on two very exciting visits. Most are delivered in servings large enough for four or more to share.

Green pepper and preserved eggs: $11

Known in English as century eggs or thousand-year-old eggs, they’re preserved by immersion in lye, an alkaline chemical naturally leeched from ashes by rainwater. This process turns the whites a lovely translucent black, and the yolks become greenish. The dish was supposedly invented in Hunan 600 years ago when a random duck laid its eggs in a pile of ashes, according to Fuchsia Dunlop in Invitation to a Banquet. The taste is striking, but the appearance more so, and fresh green chiles are the perfect accompaniment.

Sky Pavilion-style pork intestines: $32

You like spicy? I mean really spicy? This dish comes in a tureen that is a bright sea of red chiles, chile oil, Sichuan peppercorns, scallions, and sesame seeds, from which one dredges up a seemingly limitless number of offal, which have developed an oddly mellow taste given the seasoning.

Pork intestines (and other related viscera).

Braised whole fish with ground pork: $43

This whole tilapia comes heaped with coarsely ground pork shotgunned with garlic chives, pickled chiles, and mixed vegetables, a contra-intuitive combination of ingredients if ever there were one. Yet this is an iconic Sichuan dish utilizing the dry braising technique known as gan shao, and every bite is heavenly and mellow, with a nuanced use of fermented fava bean paste.

A tilapia meets a daikon swan.

Tofu pudding in stone wok: $23

There’s nothing quite as fresh tasting as handmade fresh bean curd, and here it shines in a casserole topped with chile oil, scallions, pickled chiles, and toasted soy beans for crunch. And it’s one of those seemingly bottomless dishes from which can be dredged serving after serving, and still there’s more jiggly white tofu underneath.

Tofu pudding.

Zigong-style spicy rabbit: $33

A candle burns beneath a serving platter that contains a stir fry of rabbit morsels less bony than usual, enlivened with multiple chiles and plenty of mouth-numbing Sichuan peppercorns. And no, it doesn’t taste like chicken.

Rabbit with whole Sichuan peppercorns and various chiles.