A guide to saké and food 

1
Perfect harmony

Erchen Chang, founder of Bao

At London restaurants Bao and Xu, this chef serves mouthwatering spins on traditional Taiwanese pillow-soft steamed buns, with cool, crisp saké to finish.

Bao began life in 2013 as a pint-sized establishment in East London’s Netil Market, run by Erchen alongside husband Shing Tat and sister-in-law Wai Ting. Five years on, and the trio now own two brick-and-mortar outposts in central London, alongside Taiwanese teahouse and restaurant Xu, which opened last year. Growing up in Taipei meant bao buns, the restaurant’s signature dish, were an important part of Erchen’s early life in Taiwan. Although she and Shing met studying for degrees in fine art, their creativity is now put to good use creating the outstanding menus that account for Bao’s meteoric rise to success. 

How did the idea to open Bao first come about?
When we finished university in 2012 we went to Taiwan and travelled around for a bit. We went to the mountains in the northeast and visited a family-run steam bun shop that my uncle had recommended. It was very basic, just a house with some plastic chairs outside. Their buns were so soft and light that they just disappeared in your mouth. We knew that this is what we needed to do with the buns we were perfecting back in London. When we got home, we started doing pop-ups in Hackney and that’s how it all began. 

Do you come from a family of keen cooks?
My grandma is a big cook, and she’s really fast. In Taiwan, we’d have big family meals together every day. There’d be eight or 10 of us around the table. My grandma would have to cook really fast to get everyone sitting down and eating at the same time. I’m not as efficient as her, but I definitely embraced the hospitality aspect of the whole thing; always welcoming friends and neighbours to come over. 

Has your drinks menu grown over the years? 
When we opened in Soho the drinks list was precise and short because we wanted every drink to be something we’d tried many times and that we thought went really well with the food. A short list is also good because it doesn’t overwhelm with choice. 

How do you choose which sakés to put on your menu?  
We want them all to have different notes. Ancient Mountain is robust, rich in umami and goes well with grilled food. The Konishi Silver is silky, crisp and elegant – it works really well cutting through fatty foods. The Tatenokawa is our most polished saké. It’s very clean and fruity. I would start my meal with it as it’s really easy to drink. I do tastings with our supplier and he will give me a range to taste to check they work with the food. You have to really concentrate, which can be difficult when you’re drinking alcohol. It’s hard work but it’s fun.

How did you first get interested in saké?
I went to a Japanese Kaiseki-style restaurant and they showed me a saké they’d made in collaboration with a brewery. It was a Junmai Daiginjo, the finest-grade variety. It blew my mind. I wanted to drink the whole bottle. I’ll never forget it. It was chilled and so crisp.

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2
Saké and small plates

Natalie Lee-Joe and Brett Redman, founders of Jidori 

In London, Jidori’s Australian owners apply the same care to constructing their saké menu as they do to selecting the perfect chickens from a Paris market.

Friends Natalie and Brett moved to the UK from Sydney 13 years ago. A trained chef, Brett continued to work in London’s bars and kitchens, opening several of his own joints before starting up Jidori in 2015 with Natalie, who left her job in advertising to work full-time on the restaurant. The duo opened their first outpost in a former bridal shop in Dalston, and their second in Covent Garden earlier this year, where they serve up plates of yakitori from their position nestled between West End theatres.

What’s the meaning of the Japanese term jidori?
Natalie Lee-Joe: It’s a type of chicken they cook with in Japan. It means “free range”, and they’re known for their flavour and freshness.

Brett Redman: We use French chickens because we need them to be big and grain-fed. We initially used a lot of organic British chickens, but they weren’t right for yakitori. We need that softer, juicier kind of meat. Our butchers select the chickens for us from a market in Paris.  

What were the challenges you faced when you first opened in Dalston? 
BR: People didn’t know what yakitori was. 

NLJ: In Australia people know more about Japanese cuisine because we’re so much closer. 

 Do you think Londoners are open-minded when it comes to trying new things?
NLJ: Yes. It’s never too hard to introduce unfamiliar things to people here. Except for gizzards! People weren’t quite ready for gizzards. 

“There are more saké sommeliers in London now, which is a reflection of the growing interest”

Which drinks do you recommend to accompany yakitori?
BR: Beer is something that goes really well with yakitori, but so is saké. It’s nice and refreshing when you have it with the chicken. 

NLJ: For a lot of people coming to our restaurants, it will be their first experience trying saké, so you have to start them off with the basics. Our list is quite short, but each saké is distinct. We chose them all for different reasons. We’ve got one, the junmai, which is quite a savoury type of saké. It’s thick and really fills your mouth. If customers have never tried saké before, we’ll give them our house saké, which is very easy to drink and quite refreshing. We’ll start them off with that and then they can test their palate. It’s light and full of flavour, so people tend to really like it. 

Do you find that once your customers try saké, they tend to order it again?
NLJ: They do. People tend to make their way through the list to try the different ones and see what the differences are among them. There are more saké sommeliers in London now, which is a reflection of the growing interest. When people ask you about saké, they really want to learn. There’s a real fascination around it. 

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3
We'll drink to that

Ross Shonhan, founder of Bone Daddies

The chef behind London’s favourite chain of ramen restaurants recommends knocking back a saké after slurping up some chewy noodles in pork-bone broth.

Australian chef Ross Shonhan’s cv includes some of the finest Japanese restaurants outside of Asia, including Nobu (where he was made head chef of their Dallas outpost at just 24) and Knightsbridge institution Zuma. Today, Shonhan owns an impressive roster of joints across London: six Bone Daddies ramen bars, two Flesh & Buns izakayas and Japanese restaurant Shack-Fuyu.

What made you want to set up your own ramen bars in London?
I was young enough to have the energy and old enough to have experience. I’d eaten it in New York and Japan and liked how it’s a hug in a bowl. I looked at London and the opportunity to have bowl of ramen didn’t really exist yet. That’s how Bone Daddies began.

What was your first location? 
A tiny shop on Peter Street in Soho. We managed to shoehorn a kitchen and a few seats in there. Fortunately people liked what we do. We have lots of loyal customers who love our product. There’s a couple who came on their first date to our restaurant, then had an engagement party there. They even brought their family to the restaurant after the wedding.

Do you try to keep close to Japanese tradition with your dishes?
I’ve never tried to recreate Japan, because we’re not in Japan and I’m not Japanese. I want to do something more original. People often tar us with a brush of “not being traditional”, but what they don’t understand is that ramen is evolving constantly, as is Japanese food. It’s not all bound by tradition, and therefore it’s open to interpretation. That’s really exciting. Our food is inspired by what’s happening in Japan and in London.

Do you travel to Japan often?
I try to go every year or two. Several years ago I visited the Ume No yado and Yucho Shuzo saké breweries in Nara and was entranced by stories they told there. It’s a craft that is passed down over generations. The breweries I went to had been there for 120 years or so, which isn’t even old by Japanese standards.  

How do you put together your menu?
We have a beverage manager, but nothing goes on the menu until I’ve tasted it. I try to challenge customer’s perceptions of saké. When I went to Japan recently, I saw a lot of young people drinking it. Saké is evolving a lot and I think people in the UK are starting to understand that what they think of Japan is not everything Japan has to offer. 

Why did you choose to put such a great variety of different sakés on your menu?
Saké is one of the great drinks of the world. And from day one, even in our ramen bar, we have always sold saké at a margin that doesn’t necessarily make sense for us. But it’s done in an effort to have people really participate in it. We’ve got 11 different sakés on our menu – everything from our own Bone Daddies Junmai Ginjo to warm Futsushu, which we serve by the carafe.