A new restaurant in West Kirby has been fully booked every night since it opened, despite the owners initially planning a quiet start. Phil Farrier-Price and his husband Jonathan Peng opened Xiang at the beginning of the month, and found themselves booked up almost immediately.
The couple say Xiang offers a style of Chinese cuisine rarely found in the UK, drawing on Jonathan's roots in Hunan Province. Both Phil, 47, and Jonathan, 38, have lived and worked in China. The couple returned to the UK after spending 23 years there, with Phil first moving to the country in 2003, aged 25, intending to stay for just a year after graduating from Durham University.
A life shaped by China
Instead, China became Phil's home for more than two decades, during which he built a career in education and spent around 15 years as a headmaster. He also witnessed the country's rapid transformation during his time there, seeing huge growth in technology, infrastructure and the wider economy.
While this was happening for Phil, Jonathan was working in hospitality and spending years developing his own recipes - the same ones customers on the Wirral are loving today.
Phil told the ECHO: “I imagined a few tables and people coming in. We’ve been fully booked every single day. We wanted to acknowledge that my husband is Chinese and to keep that Chinese element of our lives.
“We thought this would be a really great way of doing that, bringing authentic Chinese food, as opposed to perhaps British Chinese food, and allowing part of the culture to come into it as well.”
Authentic Hunan flavours
The couple have divided the restaurant between them, with Jonathan overseeing the kitchen and food while Phil runs the front of house, business and marketing. The restaurant's name has a double meaning: Xiang refers to the regional cuisine, while the word can also describe something that smells or tastes good.
The menu is deliberately different from the Chinese food many British diners may be familiar with. Xiang serves nine small plates designed to be shared around the table, reflecting the way food is traditionally eaten in China. One of the biggest hits with customers so far has been the spicy chilli beef, but it is served cold. The food is influenced by the landscape and climate of Hunan, where chillies are widely used.
Phil stressed that chilli does not necessarily mean the dishes are simply hot. He said customers who have already visited are returning to try more.
A significant opening date
He added: “We’ve had people who have been to China coming in because they want to have that feeling of when they were in China and experiencing that kind of food. What we’re trying to do is get these really rich, complex flavours coming through. Some of the dishes take three to four hours to cook, and everything’s cooked fresh daily.”
The couple began looking for a restaurant location towards the end of last year before signing a lease in February. They chose West Kirby not only because it is where they live, but because of its thriving independent food scene and close-knit community of local businesses.
Xiang also opened on a significant date for the couple: their 14th wedding anniversary. They married on August 8, a date Phil chose because eight is considered a lucky number in Chinese culture.
Phil said: “At one point we were just like, we just need to open. So we looked for an auspicious date. Eight is a lucky number in China. Our wedding anniversary – we got married on the 8th of August and it felt right to open on the same date.”
