San Hao

Daren Liew is proudest of a twelve-hour broth: pork bones, yuk chuk, aged mandarin peel, smoky white peppercorns, dried longan, rice wine and yellow soya beans, poured over black garlic bak kut teh (Broadsheet).

Why go

Liew was born in Penang and trained in Chinese cooking at the Mandarin Oriental in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. He was on the opening team at Duddell's London, the outpost of the Michelin-starred Hong Kong restaurant, spent three years in the Hakkasan group, and has run his own consultancy since 2019 (Broadsheet). He describes the concept in one sentence: "I've always focused heavily on broth, and I wanted to create a noodle concept for London that reflects that."

That is the useful thing to know before you order. Sixteen noodle bowls, half with thin noodles and half with wide flat ones, and the broths run further south than the street does: laksa, black garlic bak kut teh, a spicy-sour broth with yellow chilli grouper, a duck broth infused with porcini and truffle. Gerrard Street is Cantonese. This is a Malaysian-Chinese chef's map of Southeast Asia, served through Lanzhou-style hand-pulled wheat noodles that get pulled in the window during the day.

The room is 120 covers over three floors, drawn from Jiangnan garden principles with circular thresholds and carved lattice screens, done in matt black rather than dark timber. The building is Tang House, and the unit was Wan Chai Corner before it. It belongs to Kevin Cheong and Keng Yew Leong, who opened The Eight in 2022 and YiQi in 2024, so this is their third Chinatown room in three years (Hot Dinners).

Tea is treated as a drinks list rather than an afterthought. Liew: "We have wine, beer, and cocktails, but tea is very important to us." Cold-brewed oolong with aged tangerine water, sparkling Darjeeling and jasmine, house-brewed hawthorn water, and a milk oolong that arrives under an oolong foam.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the black garlic bak kut teh, for the broth Liew singles out. The cappuccino spicy chicken noodle soup, which comes with a garlicky, creamy froth over a clear chicken broth and is the most obviously experimental thing on the list. Golden roe chilli crab dry noodles. Pan-fried pork buns, cooked to order. Osmanthus plum spare ribs to start, and a pot of the cold-brewed oolong with aged tangerine water.
• Avoid: ordering thin noodles by reflex, since half the menu is built for the wide flat ones. And do not come expecting Cantonese roast meats; that is the rest of the street.

What locals & experts say

• Harden's, in its editor's note, on the long delay and on how little anyone knows: "Originally slated to open in 2024 in Chinatown's Gerrard Street, this large (three floor) newcomer finally threw open its doors in late 2025." And then the line that matters most: "Not enough people have commented yet... this establishment has not yet gathered enough feedback for our editors to write it up." Harden's runs an annual survey of ordinary diners, so that is a real measurement of how thin the reporting is. ref
• Sinead Cranna, The Infatuation, 16 January 2026, on the field it has walked into, in a notice that is explicitly not a review: "The battle of the hand-pulled noodle spots with excessively long lines continues. San Hao has entered the ring with their golden roe chilli crab noodles, pan-fried pork buns, and plum spare ribs. The Chinatown spot is massive, though, so maybe this will prove to be easier to get into than some of its hyped neighbours." ref
• Catherine Hanly, Hot Dinners, April 2024, on who is behind it: "Three restaurants in three years - restaurateurs Kevin Cheong and Keng Yew Leong have been busy building their Chinatown empire." The same piece named the cappuccino chicken noodle soup two years before it reached a table, so the concept arrived as advertised. ref
• Nobody has reviewed it. No scored or bylined assessment of a single bowl exists in any approved source as of 30 July 2026. The rung reflects that, and one good review would change it.

Good to know

• Where: Tang House, 3 Gerrard Street W1D 5PD, in the unit that was Wan Chai Corner.
• Timing: Sunday to Thursday 11am to 10pm, Friday and Saturday 11am to 10.30pm. Seven days, all day.
• Booking: no booking system on the venue's own site. It is 120 covers, which The Infatuation reckons should make it easier to get into than its neighbours.
• Price: unpublished. No source prints a menu price, and the kitchen reaches for Berkshire pork, wagyu and foie gras, so do not assume noodle-shop money.
• Opening date: genuinely disputed. Harden's says late 2025, The Infatuation had it trading on 16 January 2026, and the chef told Broadsheet on 25 February 2026 that he was in week two. No opened: date is recorded here rather than guess one.
• Diet: the venue's own site claims vegetarian bowls, but the same page talks about ramen at a hand-pulled noodle house, so treat the copy as unreliable and ask at the door.
• Hygiene: Food Standards Agency rating 5, inspected 10 April 2026, Westminster, FHRSID 1924111. Clean across all three components. ref
• Who runs it: Kevin Cheong and Keng Yew Leong, a three-site Chinatown group, with Daren Liew as chef-patron.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: none. His saved-places export carries an empty note for this row, so the master CSV's "Three-storey noodle atelier on Gerrard Street" is enrichment text rather than his, and nothing here is attributed to him.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

could-visit — Worth a bowl if Chinatown is where you are, and it usually is. Daren Liew was born in Penang, trained in Chinese cooking at the Mandarin Oriental in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, opened Duddell's London and spent three years in the Hakkasan group, and what he has built at 3 Gerrard Street is a broth restaurant wearing a noodle shop's clothes. His own line is the whole concept: 'I've always focused heavily on broth, and I wanted to create a noodle concept for London that reflects that.' The one he is proudest of is a twelve-hour infusion under the black garlic bak kut teh, built on pork bones, aged mandarin peel, smoky white peppercorns, dried longan and yellow soya beans. Sixteen bowls, half thin noodles and half wide, and a chef pulling Lanzhou-style dough in the window during the day. The tea list is not decoration either: cold-brewed oolong with aged tangerine water, house-brewed hawthorn water, a milk oolong under an oolong foam. What keeps it at could-visit is that nobody independent has eaten here and written it down. Harden's says plainly that too few diners have reported back for its editors to write it up, and both London listings notices are explicitly pre-visit. On a street where the noodle field is contested and the queues are the deciding factor, a room this size with genuine pedigree and no assessment is a good bet rather than a confirmed one.