WANGS Neighbourhood Chinese
Bristol, Bristol City, United Kingdom
Aim: We're bringing an authentic Cantonese charcoal oven from China to Bristol. Pick your reward, now's the time to get involved!
We need £20,000 pounds to bring a Cantonese charcoal roasting oven from China to Montpelier, and we're hoping to raise half of that through crowdfunding.
WANGS opened in July 2024, but the idea for a modern neighbourhood Chinese restaurant in Bristol began long before that - on the streets of Hong Kong where co-founders Sandy and Sach met in 2013. They wanted to bring elevated regional Chinese cuisine to Montpelier and combine it with a very Bristol space for good time people.
Head chef Emily Xin Xin Chan joined the team in June 2024, ready to combine her experience of Chinese cooking and fine-dining training to help realise Sach and Sandy's dream.
Fast-forward a couple of years of renovations of an old fruit and veg shop in Montpelier and WANGS has taken Bristol by storm. Our restaurant is loved by locals and visitors to Bristol alike, we've got a following of over 8,000 people on socials, and we've been lucky enough to collaborate with some of the best businesses and people around - including Tomo No Ramen, author Jenny Lau, BBQ master Lap Fei and more. And we just made the 'most recommended' in the EatDrink24/7 guide!
Now, we want to take our food to the next level by shipping a Cantonese charcoal roasting oven over from China. We'll be the only restaurant in Bristol with such an oven - putting our city firmly on the map for world-class modern Chinese cooking. Help us make it happen!
The WANGS team - always ready to cook, clean, renovate and raise a glass!
Couple Sandy and Sacha met in the queue for a street food stall in Hong Kong in 2013. Since then, they've dreamed of bringing a taste of modern Cantonese food to Bristol, which has manifested in WANGS.
This is Sandy - born in Hong Kong where she grew up with her Dad owning his own noodle shop. She’s always been a massive foodie but took a different path to her Dad, studying in Holland where she gorged on cheese for a year! After that she got a job in finance but the dream of one day opening her own restaurant was always there. When she moved to Bristol, her and Sacha got to it… opening a small neighbourhood restaurant that brought together her love of top quality Chinese food, wine & cocktails.
Sandy is secretly a finance guru
Sacha first moved to China when he was 22 to study Chinese language and culture. It wasn’t until 5 years later that he moved back for a longer period working in brand strategy for fashion brands, this time Hong Kong. It was here that Sacha met Sandy at a music festival in the street food queue! He’s since returned to Bristol where him and Sandy started doing pop-ups and supper clubs to share their favourite Chinese dishes. In 2019 just before Covid, they took the stupid/brave decision of opening WANGS in a converted fruit and veg shop in Montpelier. Sacha’s favourite dish is the shaokao pork belly within plum sauce and pickled cabbage.
Sach is our manager, cleaner, renovator, organiser and, well, anything else that needs doing
Chef Emily Xin Xin Chan grew up in her parent's Chinese takeaway in Swindon, leaning the way of the chef life from early days - never too far away from her cleaver and a wok!
She moved on to fall in love with fine-dining and Michelin Guide jobs leading to the right opportunities at the right time and place. Finally taking the head chef position at WANGS she was yet again to pick up her cleaver and cook Chinese food. Fortunately for us, she hasn't looked back - because she's the best damn chef we could've asked for.
Emily is never without a cup of tea on the go and fruit to snack on during her working hours. Her favourite WANGS dish is Cantonese chicken, which is a humble dish to many Chinese families, but added refinement with the Xin Xin touch.
Does a photo of Emily exist where she's not deep in concentration? We don't think so
This isn't just about buying an oven, it's bringing a piece of Cantonese cultural heritage to Bristol so that we can continue our mission of creating elevated Chinese cuisine that honours tradition while elevating flavours. It's a connection to home and a whole host of exciting culinary possibilities all wrapped up into one, and it will help cement WANGS as the ultimate place for modern Chinese cuisine in Bristol and perhaps even further afield.
It's a challenging time for restaurants. An injection of cash now will help us cross the final finish line in renovating our site, allow us to invest in this piece of kit that will give us a real edge and point of differentiation and set us up for years to come.
Your pledges will go directly into making this vision a reality and bringing our oven to its new home. We'll have you to thank years from now, when WANGS is thriving and known for our great Chinese food throughout the UK.
Our Xinjiang lamb
The earliest enclosed duck roasting ovens were invented in the 13th century, when chefs in Nanjing, the then capital of the Ming dynasty, would light a fire inside a 'menlu' - a square, brick oven - hang four birds inside and shut the doors. The result was an impossibly crisp, charcoal burnished skin and beautifully tender meat; an irresistible combination.
Eight centuries later and the ovens have evolved a bit, but the idea very much remains the same. Charcoal imparts a wonderful flavour, and hanging the meats while they cook allows the hot fat and juices to drip slowly down; essentially constantly basting the meat.
The oven we're buying can be used to charcoal roast duck, goose, pork and more. It's a cylindrical, 90cm high beast that will help us take WANGS food and menu to new heights. It looks a bit like a small spaceship and will take WANGS guest straight to flavour town!
While there are already some really good Cantonese roast meats in Bristol (shout out Nice Spice) - we want to give ours the WANGS treatment, and as far as we know, no one else is cooking Cantonese food over charcoal. In fact, this would be the first oven of its kind in Bristol. It's a really specialist piece of equipment that we can use day to day but also in menu development, collaborations and special events.
Our priority will be pork to begin with, so that we can add some succulent sui yuk and char siu to our menu. After that, we're keen to roast duck, goose and who knows what else! We'd also like to host vegan nights in which the oven is filled with veg.
Bringing this to Bristol is bringing a piece of Cantonese heritage and culture to our neighbourhood Chinese restaurant and it's the final step of realising our WANGS dream.
A test run of char siu that we made with Lap Fei
Your support goes directly into purchasing this oven and bringing it to Bristol. We need £20,000 to make this dream a reality, and we are hoping to raise half or more of that through crowdfunding.
- Bringing the oven home and setting up the shao kao terrace: The oven itself costs £4,000, and it will cost a further £1,000 to ship it from China over to Southhampton, where it'll be put on a lorry to Bristol. Installing this spaceship of an oven will require full renovation of the garden, and we'll need a specialist to help us get it up and running. We expect this to cost £5,000.
- Production of rewards: Producing all the t-shirts, chilli oil, deliver dumpling masterclasses and more - these things all cost money! To make sure we have enough leftover to fund the production of rewards, we have allocated £5,000.
- Running of campaign: Crowdfunder takes a cut of at least 8%, and we have to pay 20% VAT to the government. Plus, we want to pay the freelancers that have worked on bringing this campaign to life fairly. These costs amount to £5,000.
Every pound you contribute will go directly into purchasing the oven, bringing it to Bristol and ensuring we can continue making great food for good time people (like you!) for years to come.
We want WANGS to be a Picton Street fixture for years to come - supplying people like Stokes Croft legend Jeff with great food and good times.
Stretch goal 1: £15,000 - We'll finish renovating the WANGS garden in style to make it the perfect place to enjoy a succulent Chinese meal al fresco. Think beautiful, retractable awning, comfy weatherproof seating, more fairy lights than you can shake a chopstick at and some lovely bee-friendly plants for our pollinator pals. It'll be the home of our new oven, so we need it looking fresh!
Stretch goal 2: £20,000 - This is the total amount we need to raise to make our vision a reality. Raising this amount will mean we can purchase the oven, ship it, install it and renovate the garden without having to dig into our savings. £20,000 will mean we can renovate the garden to the standard we want to and not have to cut any corners.
Meeting our stretch goals will help us renovate the WANGS garden
"WANGS are just getting better and better... You can't go wrong with anything on their menu" - Kyu Jeong Jeon, co-owner and chef at Bokman and Dongnae
"Incredible place, great decor & brilliant tunes played all night. The food had a wonderful balance of flavours. All the won tons and dumplings are made in house and you can taste the difference. Absolutely delicious, can't wait to return again soon" - Google review from Louis W
Two good time people enjoying their food at one of our pre-opening events
The crowdfund will run until August 6 - meaning we have just one month to raise these funds. You can pledge your support for as little as £5.
On August 17 we'll be delivering the first of our rewards - a Cantonese barbecue masterclass with Lap Fei.
We will aim to deliver the remaining rewards in the months following and will guarantee delivery by the end of November. Vouchers for restaurants and private hire bookings will be valid for 12 months.
We will purchase the oven in August once the funds from Crowdfunder have been released, and expect it to arrive in September. Hopefully installation will be speedy and we'll be up and roasting before the clocks go back!
This is Lap Fei's oven - hopefully soon we'll have a space ship of our own!
- If you're choosing a t-shirt, please make sure you select the colour and size you'd like.
- Private hire is subject to availability and available from Sunday - Wednesday.
- Tickets to collaboration events are non-refundable and cannot be exchanged. If you can't make it anymore, you can give the tickets to a friend to use instead as long as you let us know in advance.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 3rd August 2025 at 6:00pm