Anyone passing by Gerrard Street in Chinatown – currently vibrant with hanging red lanterns for Lunar New Year – may have noticed a new addition. By day, they might spot a chef pulling dough in the window to make Lanzhou-style wheat noodles; by night, huffs of steam from boiling broths and pan-fried pork buns. The activity signals the arrival of San Hao, a noodle atelier by chef-patron Daren Liew.
Liew’s pedigree includes an opening stint at the London outpost of Hong Kong’s Michelin-starred Duddell’s; three years at Hakkasan Group; and his own culinary consulting company, founded in 2019. Born in Penang, Liew trained in Chinese cuisine at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore – and all these experiences shape the menu at San Hao.
“The concept comes from my background and experience,” Liew says. “I’ve always focused heavily on broth, and I wanted to create a noodle concept for London that reflects that.” In addition to appetisers like osmanthus plum spare ribs and crab-and-mushroom spring rolls, there are 16 noodle options on the menu – half with thin noodles, half with wide, flat noodles. Whatever the order, they come in generous portions, bouncy and al dente.
There’s laksa, duck broth infused with porcini and truffle, and spicy-sour broth with yellow chilli grouper. But Liew is most proud of the clear and fragrant 12-hour infused broth that forms the base of the black garlic bak kut teh (which translates as “pork bone tea”). His “secret ingredients” include pork bones, yuk chuk (Chinese medicinal herbs), aged mandarin peel, smoky white peppercorns, dried longan fruit, Chinese rice wine and yellow soya beans.
While Liew is committed to maintaining “authenticity of flavour”, he relishes the opportunity to create what he calls a “modern, new-age style of Chinese noodle using British produce”.
“As a chef, I also wanted to make something different,” he says. “It’s one of my strengths in the kitchen.” Most original is what Liew calls the “cappuccino” spicy chicken noodle soup, which arrives topped with a garlicky, creamy froth hiding a clear chicken broth. Even the golden roe chilli crab dry noodles come with some Liew twists.
As for drinks, he wants customers to try a more Chinese approach to food and beverage pairing. “We have wine, beer, and cocktails, but tea is very important to us.” Guests can choose between cold-brewed oolong tea with aged tangerine water, sparkling Darjeeling and jasmine, and house-brewed hawthorn water and milk oolong with an oolong tea foam.
The 120-cover restaurant unfolds across three floors. “The design draws from traditional Chinese noodle eateries, reinterpreted in a modern black-and-white palette,” Liew says. Its interiors are shaped by Jiangnan garden principles, with circular thresholds and carved lattice screens rendered not in dark timber but in matt black.
Liew is speaking to Broadsheet in week two, and the restaurant is bustling. The choice of location, then, is easy to understand. “Chinatown is one of the busiest and most international parts of London,” he says. “People from all over the world visit. It’s the perfect cultural location.”
San Hao
3 Gerrard St, W1D 5PD
Hours:
Sun to Thu 11am–10pm
Fri & Sat 11am–10.30pm
