On a side street close to the forgettable hotels around Russell Square is not where you would expect to find one of the most exciting restaurants your reviewer has been to for some time. Posh it is not, but for any venue to have all its tables full even on a Monday night speaks to its success.
It is rare for diners that have such luxury of choice in a city as diverse as London to stumble upon something new. Master Wei showcases the delights of food from the Xi’an region of China. For those unfamiliar, it nestles in the centre of the country. Its capital city (which goes by the same name) is home of the Terracotta Army and also the starting point of the Silk Road. This latter factoid is an important one, since Xi’an cooking is about as far from your average diner’s impression of Chinese food as imaginable. Rather than the rice and meat coated in MSG-heavy sauces that many associate with traditional Cantonese, the influence of ingredients brought along the Silk Road feature heavily in Master Wei’s cooking. Noodles are the main starch on offer, vinegar and spice feature heavily and there is more than a nod to the cuisines of the Middle East.
The eponymous Master Wei first came to London in 2008 and opened her initial restaurant in Islington in 2015. This venue gained a cult following (particularly for its smacked spicy cucumber that Ottolenghi then popularised), which led to the opening of her second outlet in Bloomsbury in 2019. A map on its back wall of the Silk Road speaks to the prevailing influences on the venue. Beyond that, there is little adornment: laminated tables (and menus) packed closely together and a reasonably elevated decibel level. Service could be described as business-like at best or verging on the rude if one wanted to be less polite, At Master Wei, it’s the food that does the talking.
The menu comprises around 60 dishes, split into six sections: cold starters, hot starters, Xi’an street food, soups, noodles and the rather enigmatic ‘other’ category. It’s all a little bewildering, but our server did give us some hints. The good news is that very few dishes cost more than £10 and almost every one came to our table within ten minutes. This allows for ordering a lot, and revisiting the menu for a second round, as we did. The smacked cucumber was everything that could have been hoped for. Here, a generally dull and watery salad vegetable is rendered sexy, with the addition of garlic, sesame sauce and chilli oil. My favourite from the early round of dishes ordered, however, was the hand-shredded chicken in a spicy sauce (pictured). It tasted light, healthy and delicate, but packed a clear punch. Pork Biang-Biang noodles with a tomato, egg and chilli sauce was the other standout. Picture big fat noodles in a comfortingly hearty broth – and this is what you get. Not everything was an unqualified success, but somehow it didn’t matter. My only regret was that sadly, no tripe was on offer when we visited. We will be back.