Chinese Laundry forced to sell up following fire and squatter saga

The site on Upper Street was closed for refurbishment following a fire at the premises last February.

It was then occupied by squatters who entered the property in December and refused to leave.

It took just under a month for owners Peiran Gong and Tongtong Ren to regain entry to the property to continue refurbishments, by which time the pair had been unable to operate for almost a year.

“For all that you know, after an unfortunate fire incident we’ve been working on getting the insurance to repair the building, and work on the planning permission to repair the damaged temporary structure on the terrace into a solid brick one - which is a permanent solution for the building as well as the neighbourhood,” the company wrote on its Instagram page.

“It has been 12 months for us away from business, and now the indemnity period had passed, we cannot afford to re-open here anymore. We are selling the lease, which will be all we have to re-locate Chinese Laundry. Start over again, stay tuned.”

Opened by Gong and Ren in November 2015, the restaurant is inspired by traditional Chinese cuisine from the 1980s, given a modern twist.
The restaurant initially started out as serving all-day breakfast before introducing a dinner menu and also hosting dumpling making classes.