YAUATCHA THEN AND NOW

It has been ten years since Yauatcha, located in the Richard Rogers Ingeni building in Soho, London, first opened its doors.

The design of the pale green china teacups, chosen by Hsieh Chih Chang, the noted Taipei tea mistress, remains the same as it did all those years ago. As do the teahouse staff uniforms; designed by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon art director, Tim Yip, the uniforms of the teahouse staff are predominately white, with low slung sashes and intricate stitch-work.

One notable change is in the wine glasses. At the beginning, wine was served in beautiful tumbler glasses with yellow rims. Unfortunately, guests didn’t feel comfortable drinking wine from glasses without stems as they were more reminiscent of water glasses, so a decision was made by management to change the glasses to ones with stems. What many didn’t realise is that the glasses now used in the restaurant as wine glasses (with stems) are in fact designed to hold water.

The design of the restaurant has also changed, although not dramatically. The bar on the ground floor used to be the rather large pastry kitchen. But, more tellingly, a lot of Yauatcha remains resolutely the same, steadfastly staying true to its roots as a contemporary Taipei teahouse.

SECRET MENU ITEMS

In the first week, Executive Head Chef Tong Chee Hwee created a delicious dim sum platter to celebrate the Chinese kitchen. The trilogy consisted of a Wild fungus and pomegranate dumpling, a Lychee scallop puff, and a Spicy lamb and fig dumpling.

Senior Bar Manager Eder Neto chose the Eight Butterflies green tea as the teahouse’s secret off-menu item in the second week. The tea had flavours of cranberry, rose petal and chrysanthemum, and paired excellently with the spicy Chinese cuisine.

Executive Pastry Chef Graham Hornigold and his pastry team created an autumnal patisserie for Yauatcha’s patisserie week, the Pumpkin Caramel. It consisted of soy caramel puffed rice, a roasted pumpkin choux bun filled with pumpkin, vanilla cream and pumpkin compote, with a spiced crunch topping and crystallised orange.

For the final week, Head Wine Buyer Christine Parkinson collaborated with Bollinger to create a Champagne cocktail with a difference, the Shēngri Fizz. Shēngri translates as birthday in Chinese, and this was the perfect cocktail to end Yauatcha’s celebrations with. A glass of Bollinger Rosé Champagne was served with two miniature jugs of mixers – one filled with lemongrass, rose liqueur, lychee juice, liquorice bitters and Tanqueray gin, and the other filled with strawberry and raspberry liqueur and accompanied by a floregano (oregano flower). The Champagne was to be enjoyed first on its own, then with the first jug added to create cocktail number one, and finally with the second jug added to create cocktail number two.

It is the Shēngri Fizz cocktail that tells perhaps the most valuable story of Yauatcha. When the restaurant first opened ten years ago, the only Champagne served by the glass was pink. The pink complemented the royal blue of the interior, and very quickly the colour became associated with the restaurant. While the Champagne list has grown exponentially, it still remains that pink is very significant – immediately evident in the logo, the cutlery and the cocktails amongst other places. The addition of the two jugs of mixers signifies the gentle growth of the restaurant.

It is a cocktail that evolves, created for a restaurant that is continuing to evolve.