5 hours ago
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The Duck & Rice, the Chinese gastropub in Soho, London, has opened a second site in Battersea power station’s shopping precinct. To be fair, my use of the word “precinct” to describe this lovingly titivated landmark feels a bit shabby, as does “retail experience”. And plain old “mall” definitely won’t do, because Battersea’s collection of 150-odd shops is very much in the la-di-da, aspirational, lululemon, Mulberry and Malin+Goetz range of money-frittering, all set over multiple floors with dramatic mezzanines. This is a sumptuous paean to industrial chic, with pleasing air-conditioning and polished floors, and there is currently no more jocund and luxurious a place in London to spend money you don’t have on things you don’t need.
In keeping with all this luxury, Battersea’s flagship restaurant right now is the new Duck & Rice, created 10 years ago by the renowned Hong Kong-born British restaurateur Alan Yau OBE, who also founded the likes of Wagamama, Yauatcha and Hakkasan. The original Duck & Rice’s claim was that it was a Chinese gastropub, which, to my mind, confused it as a brand. Yes, it is indeed housed in a former pub on Berwick Street, but at the time it felt more like a very modern Cantonese restaurant that served roast duck, dim sum, “small chow” and wok dishes, most of them around the £10-£15 mark, as well as so-called “hero dishes” such as lobster laksa for £72. Yes, they sell Pilsner Urquell, which in 2015 was very gastropub-ish, but they also offer an array of lychee, chilli and blue curaçao cocktails, which is, well, a bit Ritzy’s nightclub.
At the new Duck & Rice Battersea, however, they have £415 bottles of Vega Sicilia, which isn’t at all gastropub, and much more quaffing an oligarch’s cellar with George Osborne while celebrating the glorious 12th. This is made all the more peculiar by the fact that you’re indulging in such pompery at a restaurant that has the dystopian address of “Unit L1-003, Level 1, Phase 2”, and that’s next door to a champagne bar called Control Room B.
Even so, I find the Duck & Rice Battersea fascinating, not least because the great British public are, in 2025, still yet to fully submit to spending big money on important dinners inside shopping centres. The food courts of Westfield, the Trafford Centre and so on are swamped with all manner of casual dining options, but for important anniversaries and birthday dinners, we still lean towards bricks and mortar down the high street or, even better, in some bucolic setting or other.
Yet here is a restaurant in Battersea power station, just along the way from a pilates studio and a luxury gilet shop, that isn’t really your typical bowl-of-noodles stopgap joint. When we arrived on a Tuesday lunchtime, we were to start with the only guests, but there were 22 cooks in the kitchen, three bartenders and four floor staff. This is a gargantuan space with little about it to love. Still, a round of plump, voluptuous, wobbly fresh har gau, stuffed to nigh bursting with shrimp, were delicious, as was a plate of venison puffs where crisp, warm, buttery pastry meets rich, long-stewed meat. A “Duck old fashioned” with Volcán de mi Tierra tequila and Mozart dark chocolate liqueur was punchy, even if it rather ripped up the rulebook of what an old fashioned should be.
For mains, we ordered the classic duck and rice house special, a vegan option of glass noodles with tofu mince and a wildcard Indonesian dish of Assam chilli prawns. After they appeared, however, we entered what I call the “service Siberia” stage of a meal, when no server speaks to or looks at us ever again. Those main courses were filling, but largely unmemorable: £25 for a glossy, crispy, medium-rare fillet of duck laid across white rice with a bit of cucumber, and tofu noodles that could really have done with more oomph, heat and spark; the whopping great chilli king prawns, on the other hand, were possibly the highlight of the meal: fiery as heck, and in a fragrant pool of bright red, tamarind-heavy sauce.
I might even have lingered over a shoumei white tea or imperial pu er infusion and leafed through the dessert menu, but the moment we finished the prawns, the bill was plonked on the table. By this stage, there were still only eight other guests, so you might think they’d have liked me to stay and spend more money, even if only to make the place look just a bit busier. After all, if there’s one thing for sure at Battersea power station, it’s that there are plenty of other places where I can spend my cash.
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The Duck & Rice Unit L1-003, Level 1, Phase 2, Battersea power station, London SW11, 020-3327 7881. Open all week, lunch noon-3.30pm, dinner 5-10pm (11pm Fri & Sat). From about £40 a head à la carte; weekday lunch, from £18, all plus drinks and service
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The next episode of Grace’s Comfort Eating podcast is out on Tuesday 9 September – listen to it here.
