Not really your typical bowl-of-noodes stopgap joint
The Duck & Rice, the Chinese gastropub in Soho, London, has opened a second site in Battersea power station’s shopping precinct. To be fair, my use of the word “precinct” to describe this lovingly titivated landmark feels a bit shabby, as does “retail experience”. And plain old “mall” definitely won’t do, because Battersea’s collection of 150-odd shops is very much in the la-di-da, aspirational, lululemon, Mulberry and Malin+Goetz range of money-frittering, all set over multiple floors with dramatic mezzanines. This is a sumptuous paean to industrial chic, with pleasing air-conditioning and polished floors, and there is currently no more jocund and luxurious a place in London to spend money you don’t have on things you don’t need.
In keeping with all this luxury, Battersea’s flagship restaurant right now is the new Duck & Rice, created 10 years ago by the renowned Hong Kong-born British restaurateur Alan Yau OBE, who also founded the likes of Wagamama, Yauatcha and Hakkasan. The original Duck & Rice’s claim was that it was a Chinese gastropub, which, to my mind, confused it as a brand. Yes, it is indeed housed in a former pub on Berwick Street, but at the time it felt more like a very modern Cantonese restaurant that served roast duck, dim sum, “small chow” and wok dishes, most of them around the £10-£15 mark, as well as so-called “hero dishes” such as lobster laksa for £72. Yes, they sell Pilsner Urquell, which in 2015 was very gastropub-ish, but they also offer an array of lychee, chilli and blue curaçao cocktails, which is, well, a bit Ritzy’s nightclub.
