“I always thought I wanted to cook. My parents had restaurants growing up; I lived in catering,” recalls Jenny Phung, founder of cult East London pop-up Ling Ling’s, currently based at The Gun on Well Street. “I was an artist for a few years, but everything kept revolving around food and family. Then one day I had this menial task to do in a photography studio. Like, I had to be bothered about the printers. I was like, ‘do you know what? I don’t care about this printer anymore. I’m actually just going to go and cook!’"

And she did. This single lightbulb moment led Jenny to run countless highly acclaimed pop-ups and two wildly popular residencies over the last five years. Now she and her trusty sous (familiar face to REKKI: ‘Sous Shep’ aka James Shepherd, previously of Shep’s, Haggerston) show no sign of slowing down.

 “I think we’re both quite motivated,” Jenny explains. “There’s something in me that just wants to do things really well. I just know this should definitely be my job.  I know it because I can still come in with a massive hangover, prep all day long and do service. And I’m still happy at the end of the day. You just can’t do that unless you’re actually passionate, it’d kill you!”

Jenny is British-born Chinese, and her approach to food both serves and explores this heritage, deliberately subverting British expectations of the cuisine. “I want people to know there’s a different version of Chinese cooking from what they’ve seen in takeaways and restaurants here,” she tells us. “Because that isn’t Chinese food, it’s an English version of it and it’s mostly cooked with ingredients that aren’t even Chinese.”

Pointing to Xi’an Impression or Tianjin Dumpling in Peckham, Jenny thinks that the rise of regional restaurants has helped drive a change in public perception, but there’s of course still a way to go. She laughs thinking about one of her early supper clubs up North: “Have you ever heard of Szechuan button?” she asks. “It’s this flower that mimics Szechuan peppercorns. We put it in a welcome drink, so when you drank it your lips became numb. And this guy got so mad at me! Like, he was angry that a flower was in his gin fizz!”

It's abundantly clear how much Jenny cares about showcasing a more authentic vision of Chinese cooking. But she’s the first to say that she herself isn’t too precious about using traditional Chinese ingredients.

“Some people don’t like it,” Jenny says. “But I’m British-born Chinese at the end of the day, so my interpretation of Chinese food is what I’ve eaten around the dinner table plus growing up British. I think it’s fine to cook like that, drawing influences from all different places.” 

Ling Ling’s at The Gun has proven incredibly successful. In fact, Jenny and Shep are run off their feet most of the time, so recuperation is important. Jenny spends her downtime chilling out watching “something boring like Gilmour Girls… or, to be fair, anything murder or killing or crime. That’s where I find my zen,” she laughs. But it’s also the industry community that keeps her going: “I’ve met some amazing people in the hospitality industry. People think chefs are all dicks, but the food community is actually really open and welcoming. I feel like we’re all kind of the same type of people, so we all get on. All just mad, probably.”

Jenny and Shep will be upstairs at The Gun for the foreseeable, but they’ve big plans for their own place somewhere on the horizon. “I want it to be in Seven Sisters, because I really want a proper neighbourhood restaurant. One that’s similar to the kind I grew up in and ran with my parents; a really family-oriented restaurant where you actually know the community. But there’s also no spots in Seven Sisters! We’ve looked. So I’m going to get my parents on it with me. Together we’ll find somewhere.”

Let’s hope they do.