Opening within the space that was until recently home to Soren Jessen’s Ekte Nordic Kitchen, BAO City is billed as a restaurant and KTV (Taiwanese karaoke TV) experience and offer sharing plates for larger groups alongside smaller plates and the brand’s eponymous bao buns.
Sharing specials will be chalked up on a blackboard and crossed off when they run out, including grilled Taiwanese pork neck with a soy glaze and a side of pickled garlic and daikon; grilled whole fish with a yu-shiang sauce; and a fermented plum sauce-glazed duck breast.
Frosty beer towers will be available for guests to order directly to the table so they can pour their own glasses, and BAO City will also feature a whisky cabinet, lined with regular guests’ personal bottles.
BAO City’s interior has been designed by BAO’s internal creative department MATHs to create a warm and intimate space.
Lit by a glowing standalone lightbox, the dining room features cherrywood veneer panelling, dark red satin-finished walls, and geometric, burgundy leather-clad banquette seating, along with individual lamps placed on each white stone table.
The dining room is flanked by two private KTV rooms, allowing the ‘vibrant karaoke energy to spill into the restaurant’. One room offers an intimate setting for up to 10 people while the other one can host a group of up to 22.
“We’re really excited to open BAO City, where we can realise our dream of recreating a Taiwanese karaoke bar right in the centre of the city’s financial district,” says BAO co-founder and creative director Erchen Chang.
“The space feels very different to our other BAO restaurants, inspired by the neon-lit Taiwan of the 1980s and 1990s that I grew up in.”
Founded by Shing Tat Chung, Erchen Chang and Wai Ting Chung and backed by JKS Restaurants, the first permanent BAO restaurant opened in Soho in April 2015, following a successful stall at Netil Market in Hackney.
Further BAO sites have since launched in Borough Market, King’s Cross, Shoreditch, Marylebone and Battersea.