Team behind Bao to open restaurant and karaoke flagship Bao City

Taiwanese restaurant group Bao is set to open a karaoke-led restaurant in the City of London later this month.

Bao City will be located in Bloomberg Arcade, offering a menu full of large sharing specials, such as grilled Taiwanese pork neck with soy glaze, pickled garlic and daikon and fermented plum sauce-glazed duck breast.

It marks the group’s seventh London opening, following two restaurant launches – Bao Mary and Bao Battersea Noodle Shop – last year.

The main dining room is flanked by two private KTV (Taiwanese ‘karaoke TV’) rooms, which can hold between 10 and 22 people.

Visitors will be able to pick songs from a catalogue of over 300,000 tunes and order various cocktails and snacks to the rooms, such as fried chicken topped with caviar and fries drizzled in curry sauce.

The KTV rooms have been inspired by scenes from movies such as Edward Yang’s Taipei Story (1985) and Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987).  

Interiors throughout Bao City were created by Bao’s internal creative department Maths, with statement features such as cherrywood veneer panelling, red satin-sealed walls, and burgundy leather-clad banquette seating.

Erchen Chang, creative director at Bao, said: “We’re really excited to open Bao City, where we can realise our dream of recreating a Taiwanese karaoke bar right in the centre of the city’s financial district. The space feels very different to our other Bao restaurants, inspired by the neon-lit Taiwan of the 1980s and 1990s that I grew up in.”

Bao was founded by Shing Tat Chung, Wai Ting Chung and Erchen Chang. The trio started the business as a pop-up project in east London in 2013 and opened their first permanent restaurant in Soho in 2015.

Bao City will open on Thursday 26 September.