Fei Cheng doesn’t just prepare food. He styles it.
Before his customers smell it or taste it, he wants them to feast their eyes on it — literally. That is why the Hong Kong-born sushi chef delights in sculpting works of art into each order he plates.
Cheng’s family moved to Connecticut to reunite with relatives when he was in high school. He trained and worked at sushi restaurants up and down the East Coast for 15 years, making winter trips to Arizona to visit relatives. When Cheng and his wife decided to relocate to the Tucson area in 2008, his uncle from New York visited and observed that Marana was in need of a sushi restaurant. Two years later Cheng and his uncle formed a partnership and opened Sushi Cortaro.
Why did you become a chef?
“I enjoy to cook so I try many kinds of food — Chinese, Japanese, Thai — and I found out I like to make sushi. So, I apply for this job first for a beginning sushi helper. After I am done with the training, I go to New York, Manhattan, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania. The more experience, the more skill, spend three to five years, and you become a chef. In Japan they take up to 12 years. America, it is much less. You go to a lot of restaurants, you learn all the skills, every single restaurant they have their specialty and their system.”
What was it that appealed to you about preparing sushi?
“I like decorations. I always make sushi, sashimi and curi roll. You cannot just put it on the plate. You have to use your brain to decorate and make it so pretty. When sushi comes to the table they don’t know at first if it’s fresh, not fresh; tastes good, doesn’t taste good. The first thing is they see it. It makes me so happy that people like my sushi. I like to make some pretty sushi. Before they have their sushi they think, ‘Wow, this is so nice.’ They always take a picture and send to friends. That’s awesome. I put my heart into the sushi. That makes me keep going. The reason a lot of people give up, they make sushi seven days a week, it’s the same. But for me, it’s different. We always have different fish. We always make it look good and we make it special for people and you have a conversation with your customer.”
Do you have any tips for someone who wants to make sushi at home?
“Go buy a rice cooker and sushi rice. Sushi rice and regular rice are much different. Sushi rice is much better quality. It costs you more, but ... the sushi rice is much better than regular rice. Put whatever you like in the roll. If you are at home, to do sushi you spend two to three hours. If you come to sushi restaurant, you eat as much as you like.”
What do you cook at home?
“I don’t usually cook at home. Every day I spend most of my time in sushi restaurant. When I do (cook at home), most of the time I cook pan-fried fish with lemon on the top or Mexican-style with sauce. I have two daughters. They like steak. I cook noodles at home, spaghetti.”
