Dallas’ dining scene is rallying behind a longtime cook who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last month.
Chih-Ming Feng, known in the restaurant industry as Petey, was attending an immigration check-in meeting on Nov. 2 when he was detained, according to Dallas restaurant consultant Leslie Brenner.
Brenner, who met Feng years ago while working as the restaurant critic for The Dallas Morning News, said she received a phone call yesterday from Feng, who is being held in a detention center outside San Antonio.
A native of Taiwan who has been in the United States for more than a decade, Feng told Brenner he was required to attend regular check-ins for his immigration status, which he did, but at his most recent appointment he was apprehended. He had been trying to contact people in Dallas’ restaurant industry since then to let them know what happened, he told her.
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The News left a voicemail for officials at the South Texas Detention Facility in Pearsall where he is being held, but they did not immediately respond to a request for information. It is unclear if Feng has legal representation at this time.
Feng asked Brenner to contact chefs he’s worked for to see if they would write character letters on his behalf to send to the judge who will preside over his case.
“He told me, ‘All I want to do is cook. It’s OK if I have to go back to Taiwan, I just want to be cooking,’” Brenner said.
She put a call out to local chefs to write letters of support for Feng. The response was swift and ardent.
“He’s a special person, and just a really good human being,” said chef Matt McCallister, who hired Feng after opening his restaurant FT33.
Former Dallas Morning News restaurant critic Leslie Brenner (left) and Dallas line cook Chih-Ming “Petey” Feng snap photos during a lunch at King Chinese BBQ in 2016.
Ben Torres / Special Contributor
McCallister said Feng became a talented grill cook who could handle the most demanding grill stations in the city.
“He crushes on the grill,” he said. “That takes years of repetition. There’s a lot of mental fortitude you need to have to cook on the fly like that and to stay on top of hundreds of covers a night.”
Feng has had a hand in the food at nearly every major Dallas fine-dining restaurant of the past two decades. His long culinary career spans the city’s most high-profile restaurants including Bullion, Georgie, Quarter Acre, Carte Blanche, CBD Provisions and Charlie Palmer.
At the time of his detention, Feng was employed by Monarch. The restaurant’s executive chef, Jason Rohan, told The News Feng took the day off work to attend his immigration appointment and never came back.
“He’s one of a kind,” Rohan said. “He was always my first cook to arrive and one of the last to leave. He would bring younger cooks books to share his knowledge and would help other cooks grow regardless if they were in competition with him or not.”
Chef Toby Archibald, who first worked with Feng at Georgie and later at his restaurant Quarter Acre, said Feng is known by everyone in Dallas’ fine-dining scene for his work ethic.
“He is diligent. He does the work of two people wherever he is,“ Archibald said. “He tries to be a good human every single day. He’s just a workhorse, and he has so much passion for not just the food but for the industry.”
Archibald said Feng had been working to save up money to buy a flight to return to Taiwan to care for his family there.
“It just sucks that stuff like this happens to the good people. He doesn’t deserve this at all,” Archibald said.
“I also pity anyone in his jail cell,” he added with a laugh. “They’ll just be getting an earful. He’ll be telling every story he’s got.”
Feng told The News in 2016 he was a skydiver in an airborne unit in Taiwan and was initially denied a visitor’s visa when he came to the U.S. in 2002 due to his status as a retired military combat veteran. He later secured a student visa and attended several universities in Texas before landing in culinary school at the Art Institute of Dallas. He went on to work unpaid internships in Dallas kitchens before establishing himself as one of the city’s top line cooks.
His dream, he would tell anyone who would listen, was to help a Dallas chef secure a Michelin Star.
“He’s basically a local legend,” said Belal Kattan, who worked alongside Feng as a cook at Carte Blanche and now runs his own pop-up concept called Bazaar. “He has helped shape a lot of people. It’s really hard to see this happen because obviously they don’t know Petey the way Dallas does. They don’t know who he is in Dallas or for Dallas.”
Brenner said she hopes the stack of letters the judge over Feng’s case will soon receive will make a difference in his hearing, which is set for Jan. 22.
“I hope the judge will see that Petey really cares about American society and very much wants to be an American citizen,” she said. “He has the right values and has devoted his life to making Texas a better place in the way he knows how to do that. I’m hoping the outcome is not deportation but that he gets to stay here and achieve his dream.”