Wagamama founder Alan Yau launches the Duck and Rice, a pub with a Chinese twist
The founder of Wagamama and Hakkasan has lifted the lid on his latest London venture — a pub serving Chinese comfort food on the site of a well-loved Soho boozer.
Alan Yau opens the Duck and Rice in Berwick Street’s former Endurance pub on April 13.
Yau, who also founded nearby Yauatcha, told the Standard: “It will be my interpretation of the pub. It happened by accident because I loved the building since my Yauatcha days.”
A 70-seat dining room upstairs will serve reinterpretations of classic takeaway dishes including sweet and sour pork, kung po chicken and crispy shredded beef.
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Yau, 52, said: “I don’t do pastiche. What we have is a proper pub with a Chinese kitchen. It’s not a ‘Chinese pub’, because then it becomes an extreme exercise in the way a musician doing a restaurant would create a Hard Rock Café.
“It’s not a gastropub, because to me a gastropub is a restaurant instead of keeping the integrity of the pub with the eating component on top.”
“It is what I call Chinese comfort food. I wanted the food offering to be much more accessible.”
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