About My Neighbours The Dumplings
Back in the days before the restaurants and before we had kids we used to invite friends round to our flat in Hackney for dumplings, rolling them together, sometimes with good sake, always with good music - three of our great loves. That was the beginning of our grass roots journey and unleashing My Neighbours the Dumplings into the world and here is our story.
We started with a weekly pop-up held above a grocery store on Lower Clapton road. In those early days we were joined by Carol Lee, now our Head Dumpling chef, who brought a certain class to this starry-eyed operation, rolling faster and better than we ever had! After feeling a buzz gather around our humble pop up, we threw caution to the wind and opened our first Dumpling House on the same road back in 2016. Exactly one month after opening, our very own little dumpling was born - Matilda - who’s baby clothes you can still see hanging on a washing line above the pass in Clapton. So when we opened our basement Sake bar - complete with tiny stage for live music nights - later that year we decided to call it Matilda’s.
In 2019 we opened our second restaurant in Victoria Park Village, serving a slightly different menu but retaining the ethos of making all our dishes in-house using only the best ingredients. It was in Victoria Park that we finally created a dedicated dumpling kitchen, which just so happens to be in the window for passers by to get a glimpse of their busy hands in action. Each day you’ll see them sharing the hard work of hand crafting each delicate parcel, carefully wrapping the delicious filling with care and precision. They say you can taste love through food and we believe there is no better way to share our heart and dedication than through our humble little dumplings.
With both restaurants in full flight and shooting for the stars, we were shook to the core in early 2020 when the global pandemic reached our shores and slammed its brakes on life as we knew it. But with a bob and a weave and a duck and a dive, we were not prepared to go quietly into the night; we took a different route to get our dumplings out there to you and this time right into the comfort of your own home, by launching the first range of restaurant quality frozen dumplings, condiments and meal kits. And now that we think about it, making it all the easier to share the dumpling love with you all, which is what we originally set out to do. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!
