Britain's best bao buns coming to Glasgow after taking Edinburgh by storm

A street food takeaway restaurant boasting ‘Britain’s best bao buns’ will open in Glasgow next week.

Ozen Street Food opened in Edinburgh as a ‘ghost kitchen’ near Rose Street back in 2021, inspired by founder Chris Thomas’ travels around the world. In his journeys he experienced new cuisines and culture, and brought them back to his hometown of Edinburgh.

Inspired by his travels, Chris started up his bao bun business - excited to share his experiences abroad and bring the taste of his travels across the world back to the city he grew up in. It was never meant to be anything too serious, so Chris never predicted just how quickly he would rise in the culinary world of Scotland’s capital.

Before long he had opened a sit-in space for his enterprise at Bourbon, a now shut-down club on Frederick Street in Edinburgh’s new-town. Chris working on his menu and soon had a street food stall right outside of the newly renovated St James Quarter shopping centre in the heart of the capital - beating out around 20 other eateries that were fighting for the space.

It was a partnership between Chris and the head of Edinburgh-based national restaurant chain Luxford Burgers, Alexander Galpin, that set Ozen on the path for a meteoric rise.

People kept coming back for more, and before long the now two-man team had attracted attention from the likes of Gordon Ramsay and Channel 4, both of whom featured the bao bun brand on TV.

We spoke with Chris Thomas about the brand, he said: “Ozen was inspired back in 2021 after I got back home from travelling around the world and trying all these different flavours and cultures.

“I had the idea to open and launch out of a ghost kitchen, just for something to do in between travelling.”

Ghost kitchens, sometimes referred to as dark kitchens, are a new phenomenon in which kitchen spaces are rented out exclusively to prepare takeaway orders - creating highly efficient production units without a storefront that are optimised for delivery. To find out more about ghost kitchens in Glasgow, read our article here.

Chris continued: “After we left Bourbon, I thought it was time for Ozen to wrap up, it was never really meant to become anything big. That’s when I met Alex from Luxford Burgers.

“Ozen has worked really really well since then, Gordon Ramsay even came to visit the ghost kitchen for one of his series when he visited Edinburgh, it was a surreal experience.

“Now we’ve been nominated by the bao bun society for making the best bao bun in the UK out of around 1,000 other contestants. It’s crazy - all out of making this brand just to have a bit of fun.”

Ozen Street Food will be open for delivery-only exclusively through Deliveroo from April 4 - although Chris teases that a sit-in restaurant in Glasgow could be coming soon.

Another delivery-only brand will also be launched by Chris from the ghost kitchen - Dumpling Ting - serving daily fresh hand-rolled dumplings.

Chris has further plans for Ozen, with a national expansion across UK cities looming in the near-future, make sure to try the bao buns before everyone else get their hands on them.