The Duck & Rice just celebrated a decade since its first opening in Soho by spreading the roots to a new spot in the freshly polished Battersea Power Station complex.

The Duck & Rice first brought together British pub culture and Cantonese cuisine to Soho in 2015, transforming the historic Endurance pub into a vibrant dining spot, blending the warmth of a traditional English pub with the classic recipes of a Cantonese kitchen.

With 185-seat restaurant, an open-pan kitchen and a raised bar area serving beer on tap, cocktails, and soft drinks the new Battersea venue continues this legacy.

Dark wood, dimmed lighting and aromatic flavours mimic the South China’s Cha Chaan Teng and tea houses, spaces where people gather to ‘yum cha’.

Two weeks into the opening with the soft launch come and gone The Duck & Rice continues to fill the seats with hungry diners. The crowds here are couples, families and friends ordering cocktails and plenty of sharing dishes.

We follow the lead of our waitress, four top items from each section are their signatures. Har gau, prawn dumpling, venison puff and scallop & prawn shuma are non negotiable.

Perky and perfectly shaped dim sum are so flawless, it’s hard to believe they are crafted by hand in house. Venison puff is my favourate flaky layers with a rich umami gamey centre, I can never get enough despite tasting them at every dim sum restaurant I go to.

Scallop & prawn shuma is also particularly good with extra firm prawn centre and almost squeaky like scallop disk, it’s a great dim sum to order.

For mains the non negotiable is of course duck & rice, we can’t go to a restaurant under such title and not try the dish.

It’s served in a beautiful looking blue and white bowl filled with fragrant jasmine rice and Cantonese duck slices.

The sweet aromatic duck juices sip through the meat encasing the rice with its flavour. Simple yet irresistible there is something special about rice flavoured that way, almost as good as the duck itself, shame the duck portion is a bit scarce.

Our second main is the curry softshell crab alongside a lesson my guest learnt, never ask a Chinese person to comment on the spice level. The opinions will differ greatly.

The menu should definitely include the adjective “spicy” along a few chillies next to it, about 3 or the high 2 depending on the tolerance level.

The curry is comforting, hot and aromatic with mellow coconut milk notes and a generous crispy crab topping. The smell is captivating but a quick taste and I know it’s out of my league.

Instead I go for a nourishing clay pot, resembling a sweetcorn crab soup it’s a much larger potion and comes with tofu. Not quite what I pictured when ordering but it’s not bad.

I do enjoy a quality sweetcorn crab soup from Chinese restaurants and silken tofu chunks are an added strangely texture complimenting bonus.

For drinks we decide to explore the cocktails list Honey Margarita catches my attention although bearing in mind it might be too sweet being an Asian restaurant. I’m reassured it’s actually the Hive honey beer that gives the cocktail its name.

It’s strong and punchy with sour lime lingering in the back of the mouth and no honey flavour for me. But comparing to the standard margarita it’s a little different, almost not as alkaline as they normally are so perhaps it’s the honey beer presence after all?

It pairs nicely with my crab clay pot soup. While my guest enjoys the cooling effect of his blue and yellow Long D, The Duck & Rice’s take on Long Island Iced Tea.

We just have enough space for one light dessert to share, the sweet menu is short here, just custard filled buns and burnt coconut ice cream.

The latter is light and sweet just what we needed on a hot summer day, but whether the charcoal coconut adds any flavour I won’t be able to judge without trying two hand in hand to for a fair comparison.

With a full house during our dine, The Duck & Rice doesn’t need much advertising, bringing some diversity to the area’s dining options, it’s a welcome new resident among the locals.

The Duck & Rice, Unit L1-003, Level 1, Phase 2, Battersea Power Station, SW11 8DD