If there is a part of downtown Fresno you have never had a reason to visit, Chef Paul's Cafe in…read moreChinatown is the reason. I have been several times, and every visit has asked nothing of me except an appetite. Chef Paul Pearson owns the place and cooks the food, and everything that comes out of his kitchen is the best version of whatever you ordered.
The neighborhood is older than most of what surrounds it. Fresno was founded in 1872 as a railroad town, and Chinese residents were pushed to the west side of the tracks, where Chinatown grew into a district of shops, hotels, theaters, restaurants, and service businesses. When the county seat moved here in 1874, Chinese residents made up 200 of the town's 600 people. Urban renewal in the 1960s took businesses, residents, and historic buildings, and decades of neglect followed. This was a place people went to on purpose long before it became a place people forgot to go.
That is the ground Chef Paul's stands on. As legend has it, Chef Paul started in catering and opened the restaurant after someone bet him $1,000 that he couldn't keep a restaurant afloat in Chinatown. He is still here, which settles the bet in my book. When the Fresno Bee asked readers to name their favorite Black-owned places to eat and drink for Black History Month, Chef Paul's took 80 percent of the vote, and the paper notes it made BuzzFeed's national list of 30 must-try Black-owned restaurants. The better endorsement is a room full of regulars.
Start with the fried chicken, because everything else does. The skin is seasoned all the way through, not dusted on the surface, and it crunches with exactly the resistance you want before giving way to meat that is still juicy. A 2022 ABC30 profile says Chef Paul brines the birds for 24 hours in salt, sugar, and peppercorns, and that the recipe belongs to his wife, Pinky. That patience shows. The chicken does not need a sauce and does not ask for one, though no one would begrudge you a dab of hot sauce.
I recently ate at Gus' Fried Chicken in New Orleans, one of that city's most popular fried chicken restaurants. Gus' is very good, which makes this awkward. The two styles differ a little, and Chef Paul's is better. The crunch lands in the right spot, the spice mix is genuinely exceptional, and, don't tell anyone I said this, it's also better than my grandmother's. She has passed away, and I am relieved she isn't around to hear me say it, because she would have considered it blasphemy.
My wife and I ate this visit, and we both ordered the fried chicken with mac and cheese. One of us added the chili beans, the other the yams. Each side made a strong case for itself, I never found a weak spot anywhere on the table, and the chicken won anyway.
The room looks like an old greasy spoon, though I can't say what business it was before. An abandoned ice cream cooler sits just inside the door, retired from ice cream and reassigned to Chef Paul's signs. The lunch counter is a ruin of its former self, half the stools stripped down to their bases and a few very old ones left standing. The restaurant is long and narrow, with a few tables along the right side and the kitchen right behind the counter in full view of the dining room. It is laid back, and the crowd is regulars.
The fried chicken plate is four pieces of chicken, two sides, and cornbread for $24. Some people will call that pricey, and then the plate arrives. Between the two of us, that was eight pieces of chicken, four sides, and two orders of cornbread, and every bit of it was cooked with the same care as the chicken that earned the trip. With crunch and seasoning like that, sides that each made their own case, and all for $24 a head? That is a bargain by any measure I know.
So here is the pitch. Chinatown is not where many people think to go for dinner, and that stops mattering the moment you walk in. It is a destination, and Chef Paul's is one of the best restaurants in the city. Go see for yourself, because I will be back several more times.