Like so many first generation Chinese-Americans, Eric Huang grew up in a Chinese restaurant. He is an amateur cellist and subpar student turned chef. Despite taking on crushing student debt to become a white-collar professional, he would return to working in kitchens because that’s where he felt most at home. He has been cooking in New York City for the last decade, honing his craft at Michelin-starred institutions such as Cafe Boulud, Gramercy Tavern and as a sous chef at Eleven Madison Park while it enjoyed its reign as “Best Restaurant in the World”. His dream was to open his own restaurant that would challenge the Western world’s prejudices against Chinese cuisine, but he encountered a minor, global-event obstacle in the spring of 2020. His family’s restaurant, Peking House, shuttered due to the lockdown. He stepped in to do what he could and started frying chicken and delivering it to folks trapped in their apartments to save it. This became wildly more successful than anyone planned on it being and thus Pecking House was born. After a couple of years as a nomadic eatery, Pecking House roosted in Brooklyn in the fall of 2022. He has fully embraced the fast-casual restaurant life because it’s fun, it’s tasty and you can put food on disposable plates.

Huang worked in some of NYC’s best restaurants before launching Pecking House as a fried-chicken pop-up during the pandemic.