An Austin Original: Freda Cheng

I was having lunch at Chinatown Bee Caves the other day when I ran into an elegantly dressed elderly Asian woman with a friendly yet dignified air about her. We shook hands and I asked for her daughter. “What else new?” she said. “She working.”
The woman was Freda Cheng’s mother, matriarch of the Cheng restaurant dynasty in Austin. And her brief assessment of Freda was quite accurate. She and her brother, Ronald, are among the most industrious and talented players in the Austin Chinese dining scene.

And the diminutive Freda, all 5’2″ of her, presides over Freda’s Seafood Grille on Pecan Park with the same work ethic her mother alluded to. There are few restaurants in Austin that reflect the temperament and style of the owner more than Freda’s. And she’s gracious and hospitable along with dishing up some of the best seafood and steaks in north Austin.

Freda, like her brother, worked in the family restaurant (Sisters) on Burnet as a youngster. And though her path to the business was slightly different than Ronald’s, she wound up helming an overwhelmingly popular Chinese restaurant on the square in Georgetown. But restlessness is also a Cheng family tradition. And Freda wanted to try something else. So the move to north Austin, just south of Lakeline Mall, was begun in 2002. She built the restaurant from scratch, and it is not only accommodating but aesthetically pleasing as well. There’s a great bar and a lovely patio outside. And through the years, the food has only gotten better. But Freda wanted more. I hooked her up with former Eddie V’s and Max’s Wine Dive exec chef J.P. LaCoste, and the result was a menu that ramped up yet another notch. New dishes like the Chilled Seafood Stack, the Shrimp n’ Grits and the Roasted Chilean Sea Bass have lent even more flavor to a menu that already was quite adequate.

When we first tasted the new dishes late last year, Freda hovered over us like a mother hen waiting for the eggs to hatch… “Come on Rob, tell Freda. What you think?” (She often refers to herself in the third person, but not out of hubris. Just part of her charm.) And of course they were all very good.

She is a dedicated Mom, and is very close as well to brother Ronald. Family means a great deal to Freda, and she views her customers as part of an extended family. I can’t forget the time that city construction was blocking off parts of Pecan Park which actually would have inhibited access to Freda’s. She called the city and got no response. So Ronald called the local TV stations and announced that he was going to chain himself to one of the pieces of heavy equipment out front. Lo and behold, the traffic cones magically disappeared the next morning.

My one disappointment is that I don’t live closer to Freda’s. I would most definitely be there to get the Chilled Stack and a regular injection of that magical drug known as Freda Cheng!