It was a frosty December in 2005 when Kathy Yee, owner of Ya Fei restaurant in Robinson, accepted an invitation to soak up some desert sun and fun in Las Vegas. She would be staying with an old friend, another Taiwanese restaurant owner, who had as a regular customer Richard Chen, executive chef at Weng Lei restaurant in the Wynn Hotel. Weng Lei is the only Chinese restaurant in America to earn a coveted star from the Michelin Guide.

When Chef Chen met Ms. Yee at their mutual friend's restaurant one evening, they found a lot of common ground. Both are Taiwan natives who immigrated to the United States as children in 1976. She had settled in Pittsburgh and he in Chicago, but both families maintained ties to their Chinese culture and both were in the restaurant business. By the summer of 2006, the two were married.

Now Chef Richard Chen is bringing the first Michelin-star-quality chef and a much anticipated restaurant to Pittsburgh's booming Eastside development: Richard Chen starts its "soft opening" to the public tomorrow.

Mr. Chen is the son of a professional chef who spent his life preparing traditional Chinese foods. He grew up working in the kitchen with his father.

"All the time I was cooking traditional Chinese food I was dreaming of ways to transform those dishes by using non-traditional ingredients and techniques," he said. "I knew that to do that I would have to learn about Western culinary traditions, and that is when I decided to attend the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park."

After graduating, he cooked Euro-French food at the Ritz Carlton and other luxury hotel dining rooms.

It was when he became the chef de cuisine for the Shanghai Terrace restaurant in the Peninsula Hotel in Chicago that he began creating what have become his signature dishes, fusion dishes that combine local products with Asian techniques and sauces or Asian products with European techniques. For example, one of the dim sum on his menu is a dumpling stuffed with broccoli rabe, sun-dried tomatoes and shiitake mushrooms. On the hot appetizer menu is miso-glazed cod wrapped in a lettuce leaf. Five Spices Duck is first cured in sugar and salt, then stuffed with Chinese spices and steamed and finally deboned and fried until the skin is crisp.

"I have had an interesting career until now, but I always dreamed of eventually owning my own restaurant," he said. Now that he is a part-time resident here, he felt Pittsburgh would be the ideal place to realize that dream. It took two years to find the location and to bring together all the pieces that go into an elegant restaurant.

A team of Chef Chen's former collaborators has followed him to Pittsburgh. Chef de cuisine is Simon Lewis, an Englishman with an impressive resume that began at Le Talbooth, a Michelin two-star restaurant in the United Kingdom. Mr. Lewis also worked with legendary chef Rich Tramonto at TRU in Chicago, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Kona, Hawaii, and Joel Robuchon in Las Vegas before joining Mr. Chen at Weng Lei. Chef Lewis has assembled a team of eight local chefs to assist him in the kitchen. When asked why he relocated to Pittsburgh, he replied, "It's very simple. Richard is the only chef I will work for from now on. I respect him enormously. He's been an inspiration to me both in the kitchen and out of it."

That sentiment was repeated by all the other staff who have come here from Las Vegas. Dining room manager Noel Flores, who worked in Chicago with Chef Chen, said, "He is so calm, competent and unflappable. Plus kind, thoughtful and a creative genius. Working with him just makes me smile and makes me happy."

Mr. Flores has assembled a crew of 20 enthusiastic young people and trained them in the art of European-style professional service. He also is responsible for the wine list of 167 selections, which include sakes and sparkling and dessert wines. The table wine list is divided into Old and New World wines. There are eight whites and 10 reds available by the glass.

Pastry Chef Jenifer Fournier recently was named one of the Top Ten Pastry Chefs in the United States by Pastry Art and Design magazine. Formerly with a Michelin two-star restaurant in Las Vegas, she is a frequent guest on Food Network shows. Her desserts focus on fresh flavors. As she put it, "I like people to know what they are eating." There are five desserts on the menu (including Warm Brown Butter Peaches with Sour Cream Ice Cream) plus four sorbets and four ice creams.

Edge Studio of Garfield is responsible for the dramatic interior of Richard Chen restaurant. The architects created a feeling of floating in space for the lofty vertical area of the room where they hung 10 giant Oriental lanterns 3 and 4 feet tall. The cylinders are covered in vibrant colored silks imported from China. The remainder of the room has a crisp and modern aesthetic with rich dark wood paneling enveloping glowing niches. Birch branches laminated between translucent panels enclose the private dining rooms and the birch theme continues with branches silhouetted on the neutral walls behind the banquettes. Shibui, a Japanese word which describes a particular aesthetic of simple, subtle and unpretentious beauty, describes the interior.

Richard Chen is at 5996 Penn Circle South in East Liberty/Eastside. Dinner hours are 5 to 10 p.m. Sun.-Thurs. and 5 to 11 p.m. Fri.-Sat.; brunch is 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sun. (412-924-0080).