Dumpling specialist trading Denver food hall stall for its own location on South Broadway

Meta Asian Kitchen, which specializes in Chinatown-style dumplings, bao buns and spicy noodles, is graduating from its food hall stall and moving into its own location.

After three years in LoHi’s Avanti food hall, owners and couple Kenneth Wan and Doris Yuen plan to open their first full-service restaurant at 39 W. 1st Ave., next door to Snooze’s newest location on South Broadway, in the fall. They’ll also close up their Avanti food stall in April and rebrand the business as MAKfam to focus on a new menu of fast-casual Cantonese dishes.

On top of the new restaurant, Wan and Yuen are taking over the kitchen for Honor Farm, the haunted-themed cocktail bar at 1526 Blake St., previously known as Fuel & Iron Bar. The kitchen will be called Meta Asian Kitchen and give guests the chance to snack on bar-inspired Asian fare, including its dumplings, spicy mozzarella sticks and a Sichuan Málà chicken sandwich.

“While we’ve been so grateful for our time in Avanti, opening a full brick-and-mortar restaurant will allow us to expand our menu and enhance some of the fan favorites through proper ‘wok hei’, the complex charred flavor profile made possible from utilizing a traditional wok range setup,” Wan said in a statement.

Wan got his start training under some of New York City’s biggest names in Asian cuisine including, David Chang of Momofuku, Joe Ng of RedFarm, and Matty Bennett of The Lucky Bee. He plans to elevate the MAKfam menu by adding nightly skewer specials and reviving crowd pleasers like Meta Asian Kitchen’s specialty fried rice and Sichuan wings to its full-time menu.

There will also be more traditional banquet-style dishes like Cantonese-style lobster and Hong Kong-style steak, as well as mini dim-sum cart service for special occasions like the Lunar New Year. The bar will feature Asian-inspired cocktails like scorpion bowls, ginseng cocktails, and yeenyeung martinis featuring milk teas.

MAKfam’s new 1,670-square-foot dining room seats 50 and will have old-school Cantonese touches throughout, like Asian-American artwork, Hong Kong martial arts movies shown behind the bar, and Chinese pop music played throughout the restaurant during lunch.

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