Chop Chop begins roll-out with Glasgow branch

EDINBURGH restaurant Chop Chop is to open its first branch in Glasgow as part of a roll-out that will expand the chain across Britain.

Chop Chop, a former finalist in Gordon Ramsay's The F Word, hopes to open in the city by the beginning of May.

It currently operates in two locations in Edinburgh: Haymarket and Leith. The restaurant, famed for its Chinese dumplings, which it also sells commercially, hopes to open a branch in Newcastle later this year, as well as a third in a yet to be decided location.

"Our aim was always to have a chain of Chop Chop restaurants," said general manager Roy King, whose wife Jian Wang is Chop Chop's head chef. "It makes sense that our next step should be Glasgow, and we hope to be open by the beginning of May.

"Our long-term plan is to possibly have two restaurants in Glasgow. If Edinburgh can support two Chop Chops, Glasgow certainly can."

Chop Chop, whose slogan is "one billion people can't be wrong", has established a faithful following in Edinburgh since it first opened in 2006 in the city's Morrison Street, offering traditional north-eastern Chinese cuisine. It also runs a dumpling factory selling its trademark savoury dumplings to outlets across the city, and attained TV fame when it was featured as one of the two finalists for the Chinese category of best local restaurant in The F Word in 2009.

At the time Ramsay told Wang, who is originally from China and cooks many of the restaurant's dishes according to traditional family recipes, that the restaurant would "go far".

King says he would like to take the expansion plan as far as possible. "We're planning to open three restaurants this year and the goal is to make Glasgow the first one. Then we'll look at other places that are not too far away, ideally somewhere like Newcastle or maybe Aberdeen."

King says Chop Chop's food is unique. "We've not come across it yet anywhere outside China. Jian loves seeing the faces of people who think it's just another Chinese restaurant and who are really surprised because they don't recognise the dishes at all."

Long-term, King says he would like the chain to go global. "It is a dream to have 20 Chop Chops in 20 cities in the UK, and then to take it really big and have Chop Chops in America, Madrid, Stockholm, Sydney," he said.