If you don’t know Taipei but know Tokyo or Shanghai, you might think it’s loads of high-rises. But no, there are probably only a couple – then a lot of low buildings. Taipei is very understated in terms of its architecture; Taiwan is relatively a new country. There’s a sense of grey across the city that, for me, is similar to being in London. It’s quite wet; it’s slightly dystopian. But there are lots of pockets and people that make it worth visiting.
I left Taipei for London when I was 14 – I’d always been interested in art and Taiwan’s education was more academic – but I come back every year. When I graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2012, I took my husband and sister-in-law on a road trip here. We ate gua bao – bao stuffed with pork belly – at Lan Jia Gua Bao, then went to Jiaoxi Baozi in Yilan, a famous baozi place (baozi is like an enclosed bao). We had the most pillowy, light buns – big but very airy. When we came back to London, we started trying to crack our own recipe. That led to a pop-up, then a market space. We opened our first permanent restaurant in 2015.