Three Uncles

Set up by three friends (the eponymous ‘uncles’) who spent their childhood hanging around the roast meat cafés of Hong Kong’s Wan Chai Market, this fully fledged restaurant on the western edge of Brixton Village follows on from the trio’s bare-bones outlets in Liverpool Street and Camden. Not surprisingly, top billing goes to that holy trinity of Chinese roasting – chopped-to-order Cantonese duck, crispy pork belly and char siu pork, with Hainan chicken as an extra. The duck ('a wondrous blush pink’) is cooked to near perfection and served on rice or atop a fine broth of duck bones, while the pork belly is equally divine, with the crispest of skins and a thick fatty layer melting into the flesh. This is authentic stuff involving complex, time-consuming steps before the meat is roasted in a special round oven. The kitchen also produces a few dim sum bites (char siu bao, pork and prawn siu mai etc), as well as lo mein noodles and some family-style dishes. The flavours could be ramped up a notch, but there’s no arguing with the craft that goes into these dishes. Service is warm and open, while drinks run from fresh juices to Brixton-brewed beers. There's a branch near St Paul's Cathedral and a more ambitious outpost in Ealing, with more in the pipeline.