He teaches Bruce Lee-style kung fu, and cooking on Amazon Prime: meet Kwoklyn Wan, star of Kwoklyn’s Chinese Takeaway Kitchen
- Wan’s cooking career began as a child – he would wash up or pour drinks behind the bar at his family’s Chinese restaurant in the British city of Leicester
- Now he has a deal for five cookery books, an upcoming Amazon Prime show, and has his eye on hosting live cooking competitions in future
If you’ve ever doubted that Chinese takeaway cuisine packs a punch, then meet a living blend of fight and flavour: Kwoklyn Wan, the man who puts the stomp kick into king prawns, Hong Kong style, and the chop into chop suey.
Not that genial giant Wan projects an intimidating air – except perhaps when sparring (more on that later). In fact, the affable British-Chinese chef has graduated from making quick, cook-along, everybody-welcome Instagram and YouTube clips in his kitchen – or while sporting a padded body warmer in his draughty garage – to a fully realised Amazon Prime show in short order.
That Wan is where he is and potentially headed for television-chef stardom is down to the decisions of his grandfather, who fled war-ravaged China for Hong Kong’s New Territories, where the path to Kwoklyn’s Chinese Takeaway Kitchen (series one, streaming soon) starts in the border village of Tam Shui Hang, his forebear’s adopted home.
Having moved to the English Midlands in Britain in the 1950s, Wan’s grandfather opened the first Chinese restaurant in the city of Leicester, The Hung Lau, in 1962.
“All the big celebrities playing at [performance venue] De Montfort Hall would come,” reveals Wan. “The Beatles called in 1964 and signed their names on the wall – which was eventually painted over. I don’t think Grandad knew who they were.