New Tattu meal kit offers dishes from the restaurant to make at home

Contemporary Chinese restaurant group Tattu has launched a new selection of at-home experiences, including ‘Tattu by You’ cook-at-home meal boxes.

The meal kits have been developed to offer guests a chance to recreate some of Tattu’s signature dishes in the comfort of their own homes. 

So what do you get in the kit, and how easy is it to cook? We tried one to find out.

The first Tattu By You meal box includes a combination of the restaurant’s best-selling dishes, with a starter, main course, side dish and bottle of wine for two people.

The fillet steaks in the kit have been sourced from Scotland’s oldest traditional catering butchers as part of their ‘Select Collection’, while the vegetables come from local suppliers Noones.

The menu starts with a classic Tattu small plate – crispy aromatic duck spring rolls with spring onion, crispy shallots and cherry hoisin.

The spring rolls, three per person, are already assembled, so they just need cooking.

Starting them off in a frying pan or wok with a little oil gives them a nice golden colour, and then you pop them on a tray into the oven for around eight minutes.

The sauce is ready to serve, it just needs to come to room temperature.

Serving instructions suggest cutting the spring rolls in half, but we can’t wait to eat them so we leave them whole to pick up with fingers and dip.

They’re nicely crisp, with a hint of heat in the juicy duck filling. The dip is sweet and dark and delicious.

For the main event, diners can recreate Tattu’s famous fillet steak and caramel soy, served with asparagus and a shiitake and ginger brunoise, accompanied by a special fried sweet potato side dish. 

Back in the heady, pre-COVID days of 2019, an open poll on I Love MCR® invited our community audience of over a million Mancunians to vote for their favourite place to eat out – be that a restaurant, casual cafe or a take-away – and their most-loved dish.

Tattu came second in the poll of our readers, nestled between Wood and Hawksmoor – and their caramel soy fillet made the list of top ten dishes.

It’s clearly a popular dish – but can you do it yourself?

A steak guide offers expert advice on making the most of the expensive cut, from getting the meat to room temperature before cooking to resting it before slicing.

A selection of suggested cooing times includes everything from blue to well done, so you can cook your steak as you prefer.

The accompaniments were simple enough, too – though be warned that you need a few pans on the go, so try not to get too distracted while you’re cooking.

Asparagus just needs a gentle simmer for a few minutes, while the shiitake and ginger mix gets fried in the steak pan while the meat is resting.

The soy sauce base is provided, so once you’ve brought it to the boil and reduced it to a simmer you whisk in 75g of butter (not included in the kit) to finish it.

The sweet potato cubes should be at room temperature before cooking, and then you fry them off in the Szechuan garlic cooking oil provided.

The black vinegar glaze is then added to the potatoes, before spooning them into a bowl and topping with Ichimi pepper and chopped spring onion, with a quick squeeze of lime to finish.

We try our best to plate up as elegantly as the picture, layering the steak slices on top of the asparagus spears, topping with the mushroom mix and chives and drizzling with the caramel soy sauce at the table.

Ours definitely doesn’t look as pretty as in the restaurant, but it tastes fantastic.

The steak is juicy and pink, the asparagus just tender, the ginger gives the shiitake mushroom mix a cosy warmth, and the caramel soy sauce – well, it’s sweet and savoury and outrageously creamy thanks to all the butter. We’d happily drink it.

The box also includes a bottle of Tattu’s signature Barossa Shiraz red wine to complement the dish, and it pairs well with its molasses-savoury undertones.

There’s even a Sounds of Tattu QR code you can scan if you want the full restaurant experience at home.

It’s not cheap and it requires a bit of prep, but this is an impressive kit which feels indulgent enough for a special occasion or date night.

Or if you can’t face cooking it yourself, you can always order from Tattu’s takeaway service – Tattu to You – via Deliveroo or by placing a click and collect order at tattu.co.uk/tattutoyou.

The first box is priced at £90 and serves two, with two courses, a side dish and wine. DPD delivery service is £9.95. You can order here.