"If you can dish it out, you'd better be able to take it". Comedian Nigel Ng, aka Uncle Roger, gives us the scoop on his first London restaurant, Kawan

When we catch up with Nigel Ng, the comedian better known as Uncle Roger, it's an absolutely Baltic day in London but lucky old Nigel is in Los Angeles. "It's always nice here," he says. "Part of the reason I moved here is that right now, I see palm trees and blue skies outside."

The Malaysian-born comedian may now be a West Coaster, but he was, for a long time, a Londoner. "I lived in London for eight years. That's where I started getting good at comedy, and that's where Uncle Roger blew up. So there's always a fondness there." And it's that background which has led Nigel to pick London for his first restaurant outside of Malaysia. Kawan sees him teaming up with restaurateur Keng Yew and former Hakkasan chef Daren Liew for a Chinatown opening.

And while he reckons the rest of Britain still half-earns its poor rep for food internationally, London is a different beast entirely. "When people come to London, and they say there's no good food there, I'm like, 'Yeah, you haven't tried hard enough'." So he's setting his sights high. "Hopefully, when tourists come to London, they'll stop going to Dishoom and go to my place instead!"

What are his own favourite places to eat in London? "There are two Japanese restaurants that I love at differing ends of the price scale. The high-end one that I go maybe once or twice a year is Araki. The head chef there, Marty, is a good friend. A more mid-scale level Japanese place is Nana Hoshi, which used to be called Jugemu. It's one of my regular haunts and I go there every time I'm back in London. It's a little hole-in-the-wall sushi place next to a rowdy pub. I also love Manteca, and of course, a shout-out to my friend whose restaurant I genuinely enjoy, Elizabeth Haigh at Mei Mei in Borough Market. Every time I crave Malaysian or Southeast Asian breakfast, that's where I go."

Chef Marty Lau at The Araki

So how did the idea of a London restaurant come about? "The team approached my manager at first, and then when we saw what sort of restaurants they run...we thought OK, this is an interesting opportunity. And independently Nigel realised he was already a fan of some of their establishments; "they are in line with what I would like to if I had all the money in the world and I wanted to start a restaurant."

The London opening isn't his first foray into restaurants; he has six branches of FUIYOH! It’s Uncle Roger in Malaysia. So he's coming to London with more background than most celebrity restaurant owners. "I've learned a lot. I've learned how to read a restaurant. Obviously, as a chef, as an artist, you want to just make the most beautiful, most delicious thing. But the reality of running a restaurant is you have to keep your costs in check. You've got to keep the labour cost in check, and you got to make sure that the service and the whole operation runs smoothly."

A mock-up of what Kawan will look like inside.

Kawan will serve up dishes using Asian cooking techniques that have been adapted to suit British tastes. But what does that actually mean? "We're combining elements from different Asian countries, and we also have some fun little menu items that have a nod to British food. So we have squid ink fish and chips. So it's something that has some Asian flavour profiles in it, but it's fish and chips, right? And we have a special take on a beef Wellington dish as well."

Is he hoping that this opening might be the first of many? "We haven't thought that far. We would like it to be, yeah, but you know, let's nail the first one first. Sometimes expanding too fast leads to its own problems."

Given how many times Nigel has roasted other people for their fried rice dishes, what is going to make the one at Kawan beyond reproach? "The cooking technique will be the traditional Chinese way, with high heat, high wok fires. So the rice grains are each individually separated, and there's still this breath of the wok, that slightly charred wok smell. That's what I'm looking for. But ours also differs from the traditional Chinese or Taiwanese style of fried rice. We like stronger flavours, so we're leaning a little bit more towards Southeast Asian style."

He must be worried that people will be expecting great things. "Oh, for sure, they're going to come for me," he says, "but that's part of the game, right? As a comic, I've developed a thick skin over the course of my career. And if you can dish it out, you'd better be able to take it right?

"I will say this: all the products we put out are things we are proud of. So the London restaurant is going to be the same."

And will he be inviting the likes of Gordon and Jamie to the opening party? "Yes, of course, we'll be extending invitations to Gordon and a lot of the food creators who I've worked with or who are based in London, for instance. I'll invite Auntie Liz (Mei Mei chef Liz Haigh). We are going to extend an invite to Jamie Oliver, but I doubt he's going to respond. Let's put it out there for the record. Jamie, if you come to the restaurant, you get a free meal on me."

Kawan opens in London's Chinatown in April 2026. See more details here.