Kym’s was the name of the Pimlico restaurant that chef Andrew Wong took over from his parents, transforming the menus from conventional Cantonese to some of the most cutting-edge Chinese cooking in the country, and the name to A. Wong.
Anyone missing the comforting, straight-up thrills of Kym’s should head to this re-incarnation in the Bloomberg Arcade, which specializes in roast meats and respectful updates of the familiar high-street Chinese repertoire with never-less than delicious results.
‘Three treasures’ allows you to sample the headline roast meats on one plate: pork belly encased in crisp crackling, chicken poached in soy sauce and sugar, and deeply flavoured Iberico pork char sui. Each is matched to a delicately balanced sauce – honey mustard for the belly, ginger relish for the chicken, honey soy for the char siu – though the best sauce we ate was the glossy, sesame-flecked, chocolate-brown stickiness coating sweet and sour pork ribs.
Other hits include fabulously savoury Sichuan spiced aubergine, tiger prawns contained in the lightest of batters, and two DIY must-orders: crispy duck with slices of sour plum and a paint brush with which to daub plum sauce onto the pancakes, and Xian City lamb burger, involving a saucepan of spiced minced lamb to spoon into floppy bao and smear with sesame and peanut relish.
Roasted meats can be seen hanging at one end of the open kitchen in an interior that looks every inch the lock modern oriental, complete with a horseshoe bar for Asian-accented cocktails and a fake cherry blossom tree that looks like it’s been transplanted from Japan.
Prices reflect Wong’s status and the City setting, but also the quality of the food, while a location over the road from Cannon Street tube makes a Sunday roast with a difference worth a punt for lovers of contemporary Chinese food who don’t work in the Square Mile.