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Amy Poon Builds on Family Legacy with Modern Chinese Cooking at Poon’s at Somerset House

Amy Poon brings a personal touch to Chinese cuisine with a menu that blends family tradition and contemporary flavors at her first permanent restaurant.

For years, Amy Poon wasn’t sure she wanted to take over the family business. Although her father, Bill Poon, is a well-regarded Chinese-British chef and helmed a successful group of restaurants in London and Geneva, Poon didn’t initially follow suit. After years pursuing other paths, she opened her first restaurant, Poon’s at Somerset House, in November 2025.

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“I am the least strategic person,” Poon tells Observer. “My entire career has been haphazard and accidental. And I’m not sure I would have known how to do it any other way.”

Poon grew up in London, a witness to her parents’ success as chefs and restaurateurs. Bill and his wife, Cecilia, immigrated to the U.K. from Hong Kong in the late ‘60s, and eventually opened a group of restaurants that completely changed the London dining scene. The first Poon’s debuted in 1973. In 1980, Bill became the first Chinese chef to earn a Michelin star.

“Food is deeply embedded in our family,” Amy Poon recalls. “Growing up, our Sunday activity wasn’t going to a museum or swimming pool. It was traveling to eat. It was driving out to the country to try a new restaurant.”

Although Poon learned a lot from her parents, she didn’t immediately want to follow in their footsteps. Instead, Poon studied Japanese at Oxford and eventually moved to Tokyo to work in PR and advertising. Over the years, she’s lived between Japan, Australia and Singapore, never fully settling on a single career. In 2007, following a divorce, Poon moved back to London from Sydney, a year after her parents retired from the restaurant business and closed the last remaining Poon’s.

“The timeline is all a bit hazy,” she notes. “At the peak, there were seven restaurants. My parents retired, but they kept their dried meats business. When I came back to England, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do next,........

© Observer