The restaurant will open just weeks after Denis’ other Hackney restaurant, Mao Chow, closes its doors on 26 February after three years. His new restaurant is described as being a more mature evolution of 14-cover Mao Chow.
Named after the Sichuanese chilli, which is at the heart of the restaurant’s cuisine, Facing Heaven will be a 28-cover restaurant that will serve an ‘elevated and inventive take on regional Chinese food’ inspired by Denis’ upbringing in the US.
Facing Heaven’s larger kitchen will enable Denis to create more complex vegan dishes from a broader range of regional Chinese cuisines, such as Cantonese, Yunnan and Shaanxi, with flavours and techniques from his multicultural upbringing in LA also apparent with Puerto-Rican, American and Portuguese twists.
The menu will focus on sharing plates and feasting-style family dining with dishes to include Denis’ take on Macau style baked pork chop rice, using crispy oyster mushrooms, curry sauce, coconut rice, and vegan cheese; spicy and numbing twice fried Jerusalem artichokes with green chilli dip; and dongpo cauliflower; and whole sizzling aubergine.
Seating will be a combination of McDonald’s yellow tables, banquettes and bar seats as well as a central big table with a lazy Susan to accommodate larger groups.
“The success of Mao Chow has been overwhelming, and a huge learning curve. Having a kitchen space which literally used to be a coffee shop counter inspired and challenged us every day, but it also had its limitations. It forced us to be more creative and direct in our approach, simplifying dishes and taking them back to their core,” says Denis.
“The kitchen at Facing Heaven will be bigger, so naturally we can use more cooking techniques, which in turn means the menu will be elevated and just overall better thought out.
“I also want the new menu to reflect my own personal heritage by combining the foods and flavours I grew up around with the Chinese recipes that I know and love. A lot of people think I’m just a ‘white guy’ cooking Chinese food, but my dad is Haitian and Puerto-Rican, and my mum is Portuguese - add that to growing up in California, I’ve been lucky to have always had so many different cultures around me.”
Mao Chow was founded as a pop-up in September 2017 before moving to a permanent site in Hackney’s Mare Street in 2019. Prior to that Denis has held previous roles as head chef for Club Mexicana during its residency at Pamela, as well as head of menu development for multiple Club Mexicana sites.