Man Hon Luk founded Vinyl Pimp, the second-hand record shop that was a second home for London’s DJ community, in 2007, making him an east London scenester long before he was a chef. His cooking conversion came at a poker tournament in Austin in 2021 when he ate at the now Michelin-starred InterStellar BBQ, where pitmaster John Bates introduced him to the ceremony of Texan smoking. After training Stateside in the art of low-and-slow, Luk brought his newly acquired skills back to pop-ups in London, then a two-year residency at All My Friends in Hackney Wick – and now, following a £36k crowdfunder, this permanent home above Crate Brewery.
Wallpaper* dines at Hon’s BBQ, London
The mood: Hong Kong in Hackney Wick
Luk designed the first-floor room himself, taking as twin inspirations his Hong Kong heritage and the Hackney Wick music scene. A liberal use of red takes care of the Hong Kong half: ‘vivid, energising and a direct nod to Chinese culture,’ Luk says. The pinwheel-patterned tables and bar stools are custom pieces by his friend, the Chinese designer Mo Tong; the chairs and lighting in the private dining room are handmade by furniture and interior designer David B Ross at his workshop on Hackney Road. Other pieces have been recycled or repurposed from the site’s previous occupant Silo as a tribute to that restaurant’s zero-waste ethos.
As for the music, that’s covered by speakers hand-built by Noise Control Audio in south-west France. The company was founded by veterans of Nineties rave sound systems Spiral Tribe and Bedlam, and its kit has since been put to work at Glastonbury, Notting Hill Carnival and the Roundhouse. DJs and live performances are promised further down the line, with the room shifting from restaurant to music-led bar after the last food orders at 9.30 pm.
The operation splits between ‘the smoke’ and ‘the serve’, with the meat spending up to 12 hours in the outdoor smoker before being butchered and carved inside at an open kitchen encircled by a chrome counter.
‘That openness is very true to how Texas barbecue is meant to feel,’ Luk says, ‘nothing hidden, everything ritual. The red and the repurposed materials tie back to the Chinese and Asian flavours running through the menu, so the room and the food are telling the same story.’ Are you sitting comfortably?
The food: Chinese cooking, right on cue
Imagine all your favourite meat dishes from the Chinese repertoire, exposed to the smoke of a Texan barbecue pit. The idea is to order meat by the gram, though be aware that Luk arrives at the restaurant every morning at 5 am to start smoking, and when each meat is gone for the day, that’s it – so pre-order when you book a table, or eat early and finish the evening with drinks outside on the towpath terrace at Crate.
The small-plates format means that two people could pretty much work their way through the entire menu, though if you’re not so hungry, the one must-order is the beef short ribs with Sichuan peppercorn sauce, the fall-off-the-bone meat encased in a caramelised, chilli-spiked crust, any leftover sauce doing double duty as a dressing to drizzle over beef-dripping fried rice.
Other smokin’-hot hits include bite-sized cubes of Taiwanese pork belly, the fattiness of the melt-in-the-mouth meat cut through with wedges of fermented radish, ox cheek made woozily aromatic with five-spice, and deeply flavoured duck that is far better than the rather stiff pancakes it comes with. The ultimate Chinese-American mash-up, however, is the mac and cheese, for which it is the highest compliment to say that it tastes as it came out of a packet, if that packet also contained springy cubes of smoked lap cheong sausage.
Vegetarians get braised tofu, a tomato and melon salad and cauliflower with smoked corn sauce – but really, you’re in the wrong restaurant.
Hon’s BBQ is located on the first floor of Unit 7, The White Building, Queen’s Yard, London E9 5EN, United Kingdom