The Larkin Cen Story - Bao by Bao
The life and times of a Master Chef
This piece is a clear departure from our usual restaurant reviews. It’s the result of weeks of reading filings, chasing dates, speaking to former staff and suppliers, and checking claims with official correspondence. Where there are allegations, they’re clearly labelled and Mr Cen was given the opportunity to add his comments, but he did not respond to our emails.
So why publish such a departure? Well, in my opinion it is very much in the public interest. Bristol’s hospitality scene is an intricate network of small businesses – businesses that deserve clear, sourced information before deciding whether to work with someone. This article sets out a documented timeline of openings, closures and insolvencies, alongside quotes and attributed accounts, so readers can make informed decisions about who they work with and who they buy from.
I’m not here to try cases, and I’m not inviting one. I am doing what journalism is meant to do: present verifiable facts, set out contested claims as such, and give the subject a fair chance to respond. Where I offer a view, it’s labelled as opinion and grounded in the evidence you can see.
If you value independent reporting like this—time-consuming, occasionally nerve-jangling, and always done with care—please consider becoming a paying subscriber. Your support directly funds the legwork, legal reads and follow-ups that make pieces like this possible.
There’s no doubt that chef Larkin Cen can cook — he reached the MasterChef final in 2013 after leaving a career in employment law. In business, however, his restaurant ventures have had mixed fortunes. What follows is a documented timeline of openings, closures and insolvency filings, alongside accounts from former staff and partners.
The Hokkei era
Larkin’s first restaurant was Hokkei, an upmarket Asian takeaway in Cardiff, which served katsu, bao, ribs, curries and noodles. Hokkei, which opened a permanent branch in November 2014, was a joint business venture between Larkin Cen and fellow MasterChef finalist Dale Williams.
Hokkei folded just over a year after it opened — but not before raising £319,580 from 218 investors. On the investment platform, Cen and Williams outlined their plans ‘to create a nationally established and highly successful business known as the leading takeaway restaurant delivering Asian food’ — but Hokkei never opened a second bricks and mortar site. The company went into liquidation owing £153,255 to creditors according to the company’s Statement of Affairs.
The Woky Ko era
Larkin rose to fame in Bristol for being the man with a plan behind Woky Ko, a beloved modern Chinese restaurant and takeaway known for stacked, glossy pork bao, mouth-watering fried chicken katsu curries and eminently slurp-able noodle bowls - similar to the menu at Hokkei but perhaps a bit more refined.
Woky Ko was one of the first Wapping Wharf restaurants when the shipping container food mecca opened in 2016. At the time, Larkin was simultaneously running his restaurant ‘Cen’ at Celtic Manor Hotel in Newport.
The original Woky Ko was well received, and Larkin went on to open Woky Ko Kauto on Queen’s Road in 2018 as his second site. Two former employees say that between 2018–2019 several long-serving staff were dismissed. One alleges Cen asked them to accept reduced pay against their contract; when they declined, they say they were dismissed the next day. As Larkin did not respond to our request for comment, we have not been able to verify this with him.
A former chef at Woky Ko remembers “Larkin asked me to accept less money than my contract stated and take on more work as we were short of staff and he wouldn’t hire anyone. When I refused, the next day he fired me.”
A former front-of-house staff member reflected: “Kauto wasn’t doing well for money, so he fired the general manager (Michal) who had been there since day one. He hired someone else that he could pay less instead”. In a quote from Larkin in industry publication Restaurant from 2019, the chef patron said his experience as an employment lawyer had come in more use than anticipated as “you know where to look in the small print.”
Both former employees allege a confrontation at Woky Ko Kauto during which Mr Cen pushed a waiter against a wall. We have not seen CCTV, HR paperwork or police records, and Larkin did not respond to our request for comment. The front-of-house team member said “I remember there was an issue with a person that was working for us at Kauto, who got into an altercation with Larkin and Larkin shoved him up against a wall.”
The former chef alleges “I remember one episode when a waiter showed up late for his shift… Larkin confronted him in his office downstairs at Woky Ko Kauto, I heard them arguing and Larkin shouting, shortly after the guy came upstairs and was quite shocked – telling me Larkin pushed him to the wall”.
Both sources have requested to remain anonymous on account of still working in the industry.
Nevertheless, despite staff describing Kauto as underperforming, Larkin opened a third site in Wapping Wharf Cargo 2 called Kaiju, in partnership with John Watson, a well-respected chef who had worked at Casamia before opening his own place No Man’s Grace. Kaiju was to focus on Japanese cuisine, inspired by izakayas, with John leading the kitchen.
From spring 2019, Cen at Celtic Manor was replaced by Pad, with Larkin no longer involved, and his Bristol restaurants became the focus.
A few months after it opened, Kaiju was criticised in a national review (‘strangely inhospitable hospitality’) by Grace Dent. Although she enjoyed the food, the service was poor – with staff failing to clean the tables and difficulty paying the bill. She wrote “we begged for the detritus to be taken away… two small dishes were removed before our miso-grilled marshmallow was shoved down among the mess.”
Only a month after Kaiju opened, in April 2019 Larkin expanded again with a fourth site - this time a street food stall in St Nick’s Market. A few months later, Kauto rebranded as Jing Xu, now serving rotisserie roast meats.
Less than a year later, all our restaurants were plunged into darkness with the arrival of the pandemic. But Larkin Cen kept himself busy: the Queen’s Road restaurant pivoted to being a hub for takeaways, and in November 2020 he returned to Wales to open Woky Ko: To Go as a takeaway-only site in an industrial estate in Newport. It was at this point that the Woky Ko empire peaked, with five sites in total.
Woky Ko: To Go ceased trading in October 2021, less than a year later.
Around this time, Larkin was busy filming his first Great British Menu appearance, which would air in February 2022. Larkin did reasonably well in the competition, he got through to the second round but was eliminated before the final. Nevertheless, the judges awarded his hotpot dish a perfect 10 - which he went on to use as a central point for supper clubs at the re-opening of Woky Ko Queen’s Road site in August that year.
Larkin was back on the small screen in September 2022 when Mary Berry paid a visit to Woky Ko’s original branch as part of her series Cook and Share, and in the same month formally reopened Woky Ko Queen’s Road for dining in.
But only a month after reopening on Queen’s Road, Larkin announced the sudden closure of three Woky Ko sites in a post on Instagram. Mr Cen blamed pandemic pressures and prolonged closure of the Gaol Ferry Bridge for reduced footfall; traders widely reported impact during the closure.
While on Larkin’s own Instagram the comments were supportive, there were numerous public comments on Woky Ko’s account alleging unpaid wages and supplier invoices.
The Statement of Affairs filed at Companies House lists total creditor claims of £715,350.32 at insolvency. Trade creditors include many Bristol-based independent businesses, such as Wai Yee Hong (£16,353.14), Kask Wine, Clifton Seafood Company, Meat Box and Destination Bristol. Employee claims are listed at £82,643.14, and HM Revenue & Customs at £135,562.36 for debt management.
Umberslade Securities Limited (a company with the same registered address and directors as entities behind Wapping Wharf) appears in the creditor schedule at £40,081.88.
The Daily Noodles era
Five weeks later, Larkin reopened the original Wapping Wharf site as ‘Daily Noodles’, despite having cited the location as a critical reason for the closure. Wapping Wharf owners Umberslade allowed him to do this despite the previous insolvency, and the group did not respond to our request for comment on the matter.
A former supplier to Woky Ko told us they view a quick reopening in the same unit as unacceptable, even if lawful. “It’s not an uncommon occurrence for a business to fold like this and for them to owe money; what’s unacceptable is the opening of another restaurant in the same location five weeks later.”
The opening menu of Daily Noodles strongly overlapped with Woky Ko’s (bao, ribs, noodle dishes, katsu curry). In my Bristol24/7 review at the time (‘a challenging game of spot the difference’), I found the dishes very similar.
But perhaps this was all part of the plan, as Larkin announced the opening of Daily Noodles in a video on Instagram in which describes it as ‘stripped-back, back to basics’, walk-ins only, no table service, ‘really casual’, ‘almost very much original Woky Ko’. He also said ‘it’s great that we have a lot of the original team’.
In the same video he seemed to hint at the negative comments about the closure of Woky Ko. “With any sort of business failure – my failure – there’s going to be people caught in the crossfire of that, through no fault of their own, and that’s difficult.”
And so, on Daily Noodles went. Larkin kept himself busy with opening The Monkey King pop-up back at Celtic Manor and filming for the 19th series of Great British Menu, which would air in February 2024.
A few months later Larkin opened XO Eats UK in Swansea’s Albert Hall in the summer of 2024. On the menu? You guessed it. Noodles, bao, katsu curry - but this time with the addition of bubble tea.
Larkin resigned as a director of Take A Bao, the franchisor of which Daily Noodles is a franchisee, in October 2024, and two months later the remaining director Robert Clark transferred the company into employee ownership. Larkin left on good terms, but the company says an administrative error meant Mr Cen remained the named licence holder.
The Daily Noodles team tried to get the licence changed to a current director, but say attempts to discuss a licence transfer with Bristol City Council were unsuccessful because of the restrictions of the licensing agreement.
On August 1 2025, Daily Noodles staff say they arrived to find the St Nick’s stall locks had been changed and they couldn’t access the site. They initially believed the action had been taken by the council.
Messages seen by this publication show Mr Cen, as licence holder, told colleagues that he had been informed by the council he was “in breach of his licence” because he no longer controlled the unit and was required to terminate Daily Noodles’ use with immediate effect.
The Daily Noodles staff added: “The team attempted to meet with the market manager to have the trading licence for the St Nick’s Market site transferred into one of the current directors’ names, but with little success, this is even though Larkin could have easily done this under the terms of the licence. Then on August 1 2025, Larkin emailed the directors claiming that Bristol City Council had ordered trading to cease and that the locks had been changed. It was later discovered that this was false — he himself had changed the locks, not the council. Given Larkin’s previous comments, the action was completely shocking and devastating.”
The Bristol Sauce has not independently verified who carried out the physical lock change.
In his reply to the Daily Noodles directors, Bristol City Council’s Alex Hearn, Director of Economy of Place, wrote that the council’s relationship with the market-stall licensee, Larkin Cen, was “of a personal and commercial nature” and that he was “not at liberty to comment on the specifics of this particular agreement.”
He added: “Should any licensee be found to be in contravention of licence terms, a commensurately appropriate level of enforcement action can be taken... I am confident that the Markets Team have acted in a reasonable and proper manner, and that the action taken in this case is compliant and fair from an industry standards perspective.”
This correspondence suggests the markets team had not themselves taken enforcement action or ordered the lock-out, and that responsibility for the unit rested with its licence holder, Larkin. Again, as Larkin did not respond to our request for comment, we cannot share his perspective on the matter.
In a prior email written to the Bristol City Council licensing team on August 13, the director whom Larkin had originally opened Daily Noodles with, Robert Clark, offered further context:
“Daily Noodles was founded in 2023 by Larkin Cen and myself as the sole investor.
“In 2024, Larkin became disillusioned with the restaurant industry and its impact on his family life and decided to return to law, resigning as a director in October 2024, although he remains a shareholder.
“This did come as quite a shock to our employees and it was my primary concern to protect our team and their jobs, as I wanted something good to come out of this, given what had happened with the collapse of Woky Ko.
“So it was agreed that from December 24, Daily Noodles would become an employee-run and owned business. The team since then have been amazing and have risen to the challenge which has been fantastic to watch.
“Then on Friday August 1 at 9:15pm, we received a text from Larkin informing us that he had been told by the council that he was in breach of his licence, since he was not in control of the market stall and was being told to terminate our use of the unit with immediate effect and that the locks had been changed. We initially believed that this was being actioned by the council although we have since found out that this was not the case.
“We understood that the unit was in Larkin’s name, but since he still had a vested interest and obligation to the business, this wasn’t an issue. The new directors of the employee business had even tried before to speak with the market manager to update him but were unable to do so due to the licensee agreement.
“We are now in a situation where this forced action and closure has not only shut this site, but there is now a real threat that it will cause the closure of their only other site in Cargo and the loss of 16 jobs.
“I’ve always believed in fairness and for me as an investor I am in a privileged position to be able to give back and help others to achieve their dreams, however I really don’t believe this is fair. As I understand, Larkin simply wants to close this business so he can put in his new venture after closing his site last week in Swansea.
“I understand the council’s legal agreement is with Larkin, however from a moral perspective this seems far from right.”
Now with only the Cargo site to trade from, the employees who own and run Daily Noodles are crowdfunding to open a second site in order to continue their business and retain jobs. They need to raise £70,000 and are offering various discount vouchers as rewards to backers. You can support the crowdfund here.
The XO Eats UK era
XO Eats UK, meanwhile, which is registered as XO Restaurant Group Limited on Companies House, is up and running in St Nick’s Market. The menu is similar to that of Daily Noodles, which serves rice or noodles with katsu curry or Thai green curry with either Korean fried chicken, braised pork or fried cauliflower. XO serves chicken katsu tenders, Korean fried chicken or vegan katsu with a choice of five sauces and either rice, noodles or fries. Daily Noodles costs £8.50, XO is £7.95 for two pieces or £9 for three.
So, what is going on with Larkin Cen?
Larkin Cen has lawfully wound up companies and later launched new ventures — a pattern some suppliers and former colleagues criticise. Like Mr Cen said in 2019, his legal background helps him ‘know where to look in the small print.’ How that plays out in staffing is contested. Given his experience, a reasonable reader might expect lessons learned; views differ on whether the record below reflects that.
Given the documented pattern of rapid expansion, liquidation with significant creditor shortfalls, and swift relaunches, a reasonable reader may see a strategy that prioritises growth and profile over stability. Others call it lawful risk-taking in a brutal sector. I lean toward the former.
The Larkin Cen timeline
2013 — Larkin Cen gets to the finals of MasterChef series 9
November 2013 — Hokkei launches as a pop-up in Celtic Manor
November 2014 — Hokkei opens permanent branch in Swansea
Spring 2015 — Hokkei raises £319,580 from 218 investors to expand and employ more people. No further branches open.
January 2016 — Hokkei closes
January 2016 — Cen opens at Celtic Manor
September 2016 — Woky Ko Cargo opens
May 2018 — Woky Ko Kauto opens on Queen’s Road
March 2019 — Cen at Celtic Manor closes and is replaced by Pad, but Larkin is no longer involved
March 2019 — Woky Ko Kaiju opens in Wapping Wharf
April 2019 — Woky Ko St Nick’s opens
August 2019 — Woky Ko Kauto rebrands as Woky Ko: Jing Xu
January 2020 — Woky Ko Vegan launches, available only on Deliveroo
November 2020 — Woky Ko: To Go opens in an industrial estate in Newport in as a takeaway only
March 2021 — Take A Bao, the now franchisor of Daily Noodles, is incorporated
October 2021 — Woky Ko: To Go ceases trading
February 2022 — Larkin Cen is on Great British Menu series 17
September 2022 — Woky Ko features on Mary Berry’s documentary series Cook and Share episode 2, and Woky Ko Queen’s Road reopens for dining in
October 2022 — Three Woky Ko sites close, leaving only the St Nick’s site open
December 2022 — Daily Noodles opens at Wapping Wharf, just over a month later
September 2023 — The Monkey King pop-up opens at Celtic Manor
February 2024 — Larkin Cen is on Great British Menu series 19
July 2024 — XO Eats UK launches at Swansea Albert Hall
October 2024 — Larkin Cen resigns as a director from Take A Bao
December 2024 — Daily Noodles becomes employee-owned, but Larkin Cen remains the licence holder for the St Nick’s site
May 2025 — Pad re-opens at Celtic Manor with Larkin at the helm in May 2025
August 2025 — XO Eats UK closes at Albert Hall
— XO Eats UK takes over Daily Noodles site in St Nick’s
— Larkin Cen is back on MasterChef UK as a guest judge
October 2025 — Daily Noodles crowdfund is launched to help employees find a new space for business
All words and photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour unless otherwise credited
I've enjoyed eating at the various Larkin Cen places in Bristol but this really changes things. An excellent piece, to follow some great reviews. Thanks Meg
Thanks, really illuminating, worth the license fee alone.