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Jenny Koo T


“I got involved because I was


very concerned at the way I saw Dartmouth being


wo years ago Jenny Koo took a courageous leap of faith and is now living her dream of cooking exotic Asian dishes in her deli-cum-café in


Dartmouth’s Old Market. Her business has taken off dramatically since she took


over the former Dart to Mouth Deli in August 2019 and turned it into Jenny Koo’s Kitchen. Gradually Jenny introduced her unique style of cuisine


to customers old and new and was heartened by the positive feedback. Emboldened by the great reviews, she branched


out during the first lockdown to introduce a successful Saturday night take-away service, which morphed into a pre-booked summer supper club featuring a modern Chinese/Asian fusion menu using locally sourced produce where possible. And as news of Jenny’s mouthwatering dishes spread she has held several successful pop-up kitchens in the town. Although cooking has always been her passion, her path to making it a career hasn’t followed a straight course. “I’ve always been interested in cooking,” she said. “When we were growing up in Malaysia


we experienced a lot of the real local delicacies: the Chinese grandma that comes along wearing one of those straw hats with a pole with a basket on each side selling steamed bao; and the Indian Tamil bakers - grandma would order half a loaf of bread and I


watched the baker cutting it, thinking “Wow, I want to do that too.” “We didn’t get pocket money or anything but every


“I just love


playing around with flavours, putting unusual things together and seeing if they work”


now and then you would have a treat, and we’d go to the local sundries shop – like the dry goods shop – and they’d always have a little section with toys and dolls. “But I wasn’t a dolly girl, I would chose the little set with the mini saucepans and a frying pan and pretend I was doing a hawker stall. “As kids we’d just run around like tomboys


and we used to go and pick stuff - guavas, mangoes and papayas - and I would pretend I was cooking with it on my little kit.”


In 1980 Jenny and her younger brother David were


sent to boarding school in England. “We missed the food from home so much,” she said. “We used to travel back there, via Hong Kong, every


taken over by second homes, which were really there for investment,”


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