The Art of Fire Cooking
A review of one of London's best Chinese restaurants, by Mei Bai. Photography by Kenneth Lam.
Hello and welcome back to Vittles Restaurants.
Last year, in Jonathan Nunn’s list of the 99 best restaurants in London, you may have noticed a Chinese restaurant at number 21 which we have never mentioned or written about before: Dong Yuan. Today’s review by Mei Bai is the full story of Dong Yuan, a Hunan-style restaurant specialising in xiao chao cooking on the Park Royal industrial estate in North Acton
But before we start, a note on the current status of a restaurant close to all of our hearts at Vittles, Kaieteur Kitchen, which was at number 9 on the Vittles 99. Since being evicted from Elephant and Castle, Faye, Kaieteur Kitchen’s owner, has been cooking at Walworth Living Room every Friday. The cooking is as good as ever, and she is there again tonight: if you haven’t tried her pepper pot, then today is an excellent opportunity to get it. Go!
The first thing you notice at Dong Yuan is the fire. A burst of orange flame that rises above the wok before collapsing back into smoke. Through the window of a small porch extension, you can see the chef working at the burners. In one wok, he tosses the food almost non-stop, occasionally flicking the pan forward, letting the flames lick the food. Two other empty woks sit in front of him, being heated until they begin to smoke: this is the right moment when cold oil should be added so food doesn’t stick or get charred too fast. The wok hei reaches you first before the plates do: the complex, smoky aroma fleetingly cloaks the piping-hot stir-fries. The cooking here is organised around heat and momentum; ingredients are constantly sautéed, tossed and kissed by flame, with one chef simultaneously managing all three woks. Plates leave the kitchen as quickly as they enter it. Nothing here is designed to linger.
The fire cooking at Dong Yuan is an incongruous sight for North Acton, an area stitched together by industrial estates, student accommodation blocks and the skeleton of HS2 construction. For decades, the affordable rents here have drawn Lebanese, Iraqi and Syrian restaurants and sweet shops tucked between warehouses and depots (outside Dong Yuan, the sign still reads Meat & Grill, a relic from a previous tenant). The restaurant sits on the outer edge of the Acton Business Centre, a block better known for its dark kitchens than for dining rooms. Around it, meals are assembled for delivery, packaged and dispatched. It feels accidental, almost provisional, yet the cooking is deliberate and precisely timed. Much of that timing revolves around chillies; if they linger too long in the wok, they soften and steam rather than sear, muting the aroma. The difference between a dish that smells vivid and one that falls flat can be a matter of seconds in the intimidating flames.
One of the faces you’ll spot engulfed in fire is that of Cui Yaohua, the owner of Dong Yuan. More than a decade ago, Cui began working at a company processing scrap metal and supplying 3D filaments in Acton; over time, he took over the business, watching Park Royal change around him. He started a takeaway-only food delivery business in Whitechapel, selling spicy and numbing crayfish, before taking ownership of a Japanese lunch spot in Canary Wharf. In 2021, he opened Dong Yuan on the site of a Lebanese takeaway. At first, Dong Yuan offered British-Chinese takeaway staples like sweet and sour chicken, crispy shredded duck and satay skewers. When nearby Chinese students enquired if they could do something more ‘authentic’ – like a clay pot stew or home-cooking staples like tomato with scrambled eggs and red braised chicken – Cui decided to cook the food he missed himself. Together with his business partner chef Li, who once worked in five-star hotel kitchens near Shanghai, he implemented a full kitchen makeover, investing in a set of powerful wok burners with a water curtain – a constant stream of water cooling the stainless-steel surface to prevent overheating – and started to cook xiao chao.