Wagamama opens noodle lab in Soho

Wagamama has opened the doors to the new home of noodle lab at the Great Marlborough Street restaurant, marking its return to Soho. Noodle lab will act as the chef’s playground, a space for recipe and idea testing, allowing The Restaurant Group-owned Wagamama to experiment with cutting-edge sustainable solutions. 

In the coming months, noodle lab will also host a series of collaborations with some of the country's most exciting food innovators, with details to be announced soon. 

The venue has over 120 covers and is open seven days a week. Introducing the new home of noodle lab in Soho style, for the first time, Wagamama has introduced its version of vegan k-dogs, the Korean street food favourite. It features two plant-based Korean corn dogs coated in a crispy noodle crumb and drizzled with sriracha and turmeric vegan mayo then topped with chilli, coriander and red pepper powder.

Also fresh on the noodle lab menu is the Japanese classic with a plant-based twist, vegan ‘pork’ tonkatsu. The dish is made of juicy breaded vegan ‘pork’ on sticky rice, with a side of tonkatsu sauce and crunchy cabbage slaw mixed with Wagamama’s white miso and mustard dressing, topped with sesame seeds and red chilli.

The Wagamama noodle lab in Soho

Global executive chef Steve Mangleshot comments: "We are so excited to welcome guests to the benches of noodle lab Great Marlborough Street. Our chefs can’t wait to showcase their skills and play with the weird and wonderful to create innovative and groundbreaking dishes. My team are taking on the challenge to cement noodle lab at the centre of the UK food landscape by serving relevant, sustainable and creative dishes. Our fantastic team has been working hard to ensure we can bring our much-loved Wagamama experience to guests."

Brand-new sides will also be available, including Tokyo fries, fully loaded crispy sweet potato fries covered with a sticky Korean sauce, vegan mayo and sriracha and topped with either barbeque chicken, barbecue beef brisket and aubergine and caramelised onion. To further reduce food waste, the wok-fried greens will include cauliflower stems and leaves, and be woked together with fragrant garlic and soy sauce. Finally, guests can try the vegan ‘pork’ buns, made with breaded vegan ‘pork’ made from jackfruit.

For dessert, noodle lab offers chouxnuts, a blend of soft doughnuts and crisp choux pastry to create a light and airy bun with a custard filling of either sweet matcha or kuromitsu.

Hawkes dead + berried cider will be sold here exclusively. For cocktail lovers, noodle lab offers a grown-up take on a float, the power sorbet spritz, featuring gin and sparkling water with a scoop of zingy power juice sorbet.

The noodle lab menu will keep Wagamama’s promise to be 50% plant-based, also offering classics such as the katsu curry, yaki soba and crispy chilli mushrooms.

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