Three Uncles
The duck and the pork are hung and fan dried overnight before they go anywhere near an oven, and there are fifteen stools to eat them on.
Why go
Chong Yew, Pui Sing Tsang and Mo Kwok opened a takeaway kiosk on Devonshire Row in 2019 and it is still the first of what is now eight Three Uncles addresses. The site's own page is unfussy about what it is: Our first location. We opened here in 2019... Expect counter service with indoor seating for 15 customers, available on first come first serve basis
(Three Uncles). The cooking is siu mei done in full, and the group states the sequence itself: marinate on the inside, rub on the outside, hang and fan dry overnight, roast, rest, serve. That overnight dry is the step most London kitchens skip and the reason the pork skin comes off the cleaver in shards. It is a two-minute walk from Liverpool Street.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the roast duck, or a two-meat combo if you want the duck and the siu yuk on one plate. Harden's surveyors call it
Fantastic roast duck
and give the char siu sou as the menu tip.2 - Avoid: bringing a group. Fifteen seats, first come first served, and the shutters go down at nine.
What locals & experts say
- Harden's survey, on this Liverpool Street site, which its own write-up names before the quotes start:
The definition of cheap and cheerful Asian food,
and the countersshow that you don't have to traipse into Soho for a quick and tasty meal of great Cantonese roast meats.
The sharper line istop Hong Kong food, affordable and better than at normal sit-down restaurants.
2 - Harden's again, on the room:
A takeaway hole in the wall with some seating,
andNo frills, but tasty, fast and cheap.
Quoted because it sets the expectation correctly rather than because it flatters.2 - Jimi Famurewa, Evening Standard, of the Brixton Village branch:
cooking of immense focus, skill and real endorphin-spiking intensity. It is ancient artistry, sharpened by its placement in a slick new frame.
That is a different room and it is labeled as one.4 - No named critic has reviewed this counter, and nobody among 589 London industry votes names Three Uncles at any address.
Good to know
- Where: 12 Devonshire Row, EC2M 4RH, a side street off Bishopsgate opposite Liverpool Street station.
- Sites: the group runs Liverpool Street (this page), Brixton Village, Camden Lock, Saint Paul's at 3 Old Bailey, Ealing, Brent Cross, a Bermondsey delivery kitchen, and King's Cross is announced. Two of those are inside the City of London, so "the City branch" is ambiguous; this one is the EC2M address.
- Timing: 11.45am to 9pm, seven days.
- Booking: none. Fifteen seats, first come first served.
- Signature delivered: Cantonese roast meats, chopped to order, which is one of the nine things London is known for. This counter does it in the Square Mile rather than on Gerrard Street, and its own pitch is that you no longer have to walk to Soho for it.
- Hygiene: rating 5 from the City of London Corporation, inspected 15 July 2024, with hygienic food handling, structural condition and confidence in management all scoring 0, the best possible on each. The Camden site's rating of 3 belongs to Camden.5
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: Saved with no note; the note on my list belongs to the Camden branch.
Verdict
should-visit — Worth going out of your way for, and this is the branch to pick. Three Hong Kong friends opened a takeaway kiosk on Devonshire Row in 2019 and it is still the original: fifteen stools, counter service, first come first served, shutters down at nine. The roasting is done the long way, marinated inside, rubbed outside, hung and fan dried overnight before it goes near the oven, which is the step that decides whether siu yuk skin shatters. Harden's surveyors put it plainly, that this is 'top Hong Kong food, affordable and better than at normal sit-down restaurants' and that you 'don't have to traipse into Soho' for it. The City of London Corporation rated this kitchen 5 in July 2024 with the best possible score on all three components. It sits a rung above our Camden entry because this is the room the group started in and the room Harden's actually surveyed, and below the top rung because no named critic has judged this counter and nobody in 589 industry votes names it.