Yuu Kitchen

What a great place to dine! Food is excellent, every bite is a big pleasure and surprise. Very innovative and interesting! Stephen is the best host and his team is doing a great job! Thank you! Will definitely be back soon!

Peter Morrell is highly impressed with this Spitalfields restaurant which serves a veritable feast of Pan-Asian flavours. Yuu Kitchen Dining Space. Yuu Kitchen Bao Bun. PausePlayPlayPrev|Next. As the City of London moves forever eastward so the demand for good restaurant in the newly developed areas grow. A restaurant that is well placed to meet this increasing demand is Yuu Kitchen. It’s just celebrated its first birthday and recently a friend and I had lunch there.

Head Chef Jon de Villa (ex-Nobu, ex-Flesh & Buns) blends fine dining flair with casual dining fun at Yuu Kitchen on Commercial Street – a (new-ish) Pacific Rim restaurant emphasising Southeast Asian flavours cooked mostly on two Big Green Egg BBQ grills. De Villa’s menu of sharing dishes and bao is one of the most irresistible I’ve yet to come across in London. Highlights from it include everything I tried – no duds. But if I had to single out one dish to rave about, it would have to be the unbelievably tender baby back ribs (with Asian BBQ sauce and chilli, £7.50). BBQed octopus (braised with sake, mirin and soy with a ginger and garlic sauce, £8.50) more than did the trick for me as well. Same goes for the deeply flavoursome sweet and sticky eggplant (wok fried with white miso glaze, crunchy shallots and sesame, £5.50). I loved the twice cooked 7Up braised pork belly bao (BBQ sauce, cucumber pickles and peanuts, £5.20) and the crispy soft shell crab bao (wasabi mayo, lettuce and red onion, £6.50) too.

Dined here a few weeks ago with a couple of friends after work. Been meaning to get to the place since it opened. Read some great reviews on TripAdvisor and was following them on Instagram and loved the look of the place and the food. When we got there, it didn't disappoint. I think they've had a play around with the menu as I can't seem to find fault with the dishes we had. We enjoyed Bao buns, sticky chicken wings, some of the tostadas and the poke. They were all delicious. I like spice so I added it to someone the food I had with this gorgeous chilli oil they make themselves - it's hot, trust me! We drank the fizz on tap and then the wines, just sounded cool to be drinking wine off a tap! Loved it.

Nice atmosphere and good acoustics.  Most of the seating is counter height but the bar stools are comfortable and have backs.  There is only one wheelchair accessible table for two, of normal height.  Our table of four were reasonably impressed by the Pan Asian and Southern Pacific Rim  food on offer.  Our table included a native Singaporean, an Australian, and a Taiwanese.

We started with double orders of fried pork scratching with an acidic dipping sauce.  Okay, but not that exciting.  A double order of twice cooked 7-Up braised pork belly bao was nice not particularly special either.

The poke of raw tuna, salmon, whitefish and octopus was astoundingly good.  A touch acidic, so similar to ceviche but much more subtle.  It contained cubes of avocado and slivers of red onion and was also flavored with a little soy and sesame.

The Dutchman in our party is crazy about aubergine so we had two orders of wok fried aubergine with miso glaze.  The aubergine fan found the dish a little bland but I loved it.  Crisp, lightly floured, deep fried aubergine that was not greasy, and subtly both sweet and savory.  All of the deep fried dishes were perfectly executed.  Sweet potato fries came with sriracha spiked mayo and were beautiful as well.  Bone dry with no hint of oiliness, with a very light tempura coating of batter.

Green papaya salad at £9 was expensive compared to ethnic SE Asian restaurants.  However, it was very refined with finely crushed peanuts, crispy fried salmon skins as well as cooked salmon, slivers of thinly julienned green beans.  Could have had a little more heat for my taste though.

Our double cooked chicken from the "Large Plates" section of the menu was underwhelming.  I was looking forward to this labor intensive dish of chicken first poached in spicy broth that is then dry cooked either in the deep fryer or under the broiler.  It was extremely successful in terms of texture with moist flesh and delicate thin skin.  However it did not have much flavor without the sweet BBQ dipping sauce it came with.  The version at Yuu was roasted rather than deep fried.  Enormous portion.  The four of us also had two orders of rice, which was plenty.  Service was thoughtful enough to bring the rice with the chicken.

We shared two desserts.  The grilled fingerling bananas were amazing.  These were the short, firm and very sweet bananas you often see in SE Asia but hardly ever in the West.  They had been coated with brown sugar and broiled with a flame thrower until a crispy crust formed.  Think of a creme brule with very sweet banana instead of custard.  It served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream which added contrast in terms of temperature and texture.  Great dish.  Our other dessert of chocolate spring rolls was less to my liking.  Tiny spring rolls filled with dark chocolate served with raspberry sorbet.  It would have been way too stodgy without the fruit sorbet foil.

We attended the discounted soft launch, but our bill was quite high due to the copious amounts of wine ordered.  At full price our food bill would have been £24 a head before service.  I would be willing to try more of the menu and happily re-order the poke, aubergine and grilled bananas.

This restaurant is one of the best I've been to, here in London. The food is amazing, with great taste and presentation experienced with every dish. I I've eaten here several times, for multiple reasons which the decor is on being so cool, the staff are really nice and professional; portraying the overall culture of this restaurant. My favourite dishes: Sweet & Sticky Eggplant, 7Up Boa Pork Bun, Spicy Tuna Tostada, and Filipino style sticky adobo chicken wings... (there are other things on the menu I'm still yet to try, that I'll do next time). If you know, then Yuu know! 😁

We love Yuu Kitchen! What a cute spot with super friendly service and tasty food. We've been here twice in the several days we've been in London and we'll definitely come back again before we leave. Some of our faves are the prawn crackers (a great little snack); grilled cauliflower w/ jalapeno ponzu; dynamite shrimps; and the pork belly bao (one of our favorites ever). Go!

Food was good! You can get 2-3 items per person to share with friends. Best item was the eggplant with minced meat.

Busy Asian food kitchen with small plates and variety of options. Bao buns, chicken wings, tofu and vegetarian options. Open kitchen with food prepared to order, some menu items on open charcoal grill. Somewhat expensive for them portion sizes but delicious and fresh.

Location very close to Aldgate East Station, the restaurant has a really cool interior. Went got the bottomless baos which we booked for 6pm on a Friday. The Bao buns were amazing and we were served very quickly throughout the hour, the waiters would ask for our order as soon as we had ordered a bao bun. Can recommend enough, the bao buns were amazing, 5 good options (chicken, pork belly, aubergine, tofu and Jackfruit) the chicken and aubergine being my favourite