Monday Bulletin: Ling Ling’s new residency and Crunch to open in Soho

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Ling Ling’s

The popular supper club Ling Ling’s has a new home at The Bluecoats pub in Tottenham. Run by chef Jenny Phung and her partner James Shepherd, dishes are heavily influenced by Phung’s Chinese heritage and are a product of years of pop-ups in London. The Sunday menu will include Chinese-inspired roast dinners, including five spiced pork belly and crispy skin chicken with ginger and spring onion, while match days — for Spurs fans — will bring snacks like spring rolls, Sichuan chicken wings, and Phung’s ‘McLing fillet ‘o’ fish’. On the regular menu, poached king prawn wontons, aromatic duck salad, and doubanjiang mushrooms with crackers. ‘Ling Ling’s has been searching for a new work home in Tottenham for a while and we have finally found it,’ said Phung. ‘At last we can bring back the much-anticipated roast, Ling Ling’s full menu and a match day menu’. Bluecoats landlord Tom Gibson added: ‘We’ve always been about supporting innovation in the area, and Jenny embodies that spirit perfectly.’ Begins Feb 5.

Crunch

London’s legions of sandwich fans will be pleased to learn that Crunch, the queue-inducing sarnie shop in Spitalfields Market, is to open in Soho. Crunch has been building a reputation for hangover-busting combinations, including the patty melt with truffled beef, Red Leicester, crispy onion marmalade and truffle mayo, and ‘Michael’s Chicken’, which combines fried chicken, shredded lettuce, baby pickles and dill aioli. The bread at Crunch is brioche, freshly baked each morning, but much of the sweetness has been removed, allowing the fluffiness to exist without compromise. Behind Crunch are friends Sacha Yonan and Michael Medovnikov and chef Joni Francisco, who trained under Alexis Gauthier. The shop will open in the former Maitre Choux on Dean Street next month. Expect Supernova-style queues.

Small Plates

• Chef Tom Brown is opening a new 28-cover restaurant at the Capital hotel in Knightsbridge in the spring, eight years after he departed Nathan Outlaw’s restaurant there to launch his own ventures.
   
• Chef Jemma Harrison, currently cooking at Don’t Tell Dad and formerly of Westerns Laundry, Camille and Koya, is hosting a pop-up at Giacco’s wine bar in Highbury on February 2 and 9, lunch and dinner. On the menu, dishes such as duck schnitzel with mushroom sauce, red cabbage and blood orange, and latkes with sweet radicchio and sheep’s cheese.
   
• Applications have now opened for MasterChef: The Professionals 2025, newly presented by restaurant critic Grace Dent. ‘The latest series was a huge success, with Lancaster-based chef Dan Merriman triumphing as the 2024 champion,’ a press release said. ‘Over the years, MasterChef: The Professionals has propelled a number of rising stars into the spotlight, including Nikita Pathakji, Steve Groves, Elly Wentworth, Matthew Ryle, Santosh Shah, and Louisa Ellis.’ Apply here.
   
• Hackney favourite Hill & Szrok has announced it is to close its restaurant after 11 years. The butcher will remain, but the team announced on Instagram that it was time to end dinner service. ‘The challenges of staffing in recent years have been tough, and with no signs of change, now feels like the right time to close this chapter and focus on growing the butcher shop to even greater heights.’
  
  
• The artists’ retreat, hotel and restaurant Boath House has suddenly closed, The Scotsman reports.
  Cabin Studio, the group behind Sessions Arts Club, launched in 2022 just outside the seaside village of Nairn in the Scottish Highlands. The dining room opened only last year. Boath House ceased trading on January 23.
  
  
• Mandarin Oriental in Geneva will open a branch of Ottolenghi on January 30. The restaurant is to be inspired by the ethos of Ottolenghi’s London-based concept ROVI, the team announced.