“What’s happening is very special” says Queena Wong in London (with new Red Stars)

By Rachel Fellows

Published 15-January-2026

Interview / London

In her second dispatch as London Ambassador, Queena Wong is adding 10 new Red Stars to our London map and offering refreshed reviews for 10 further existing listings. What’s more, as one of last year’s judges for the UK leg of the Star Wine List of the Year competition, she has a few insights into what a judge might be looking for, ahead of announcements regarding this year’s cohort.

Australian wine collector and educator Queena Wong has lived in London for 30 years and quickly became enamoured by its eclectic food and wine scene. An enthusiastic patron of London’s top dining spots, she’s more recently made a name for herself in wine circles with her Curious Vines community, through which she works to champion women in the industry by providing education, support, networking and all sorts of professional development opportunities.

In spring 2025, Queena served as a guest judge in our UK wine list competition before, later that year, becoming our London Ambassador. And since she’s not sitting on this year’s jury panel, we asked her if she had any advice for sommeliers keen to have their wine lists recognised in 2026.

“The London standard is high – it is competitive,” she tells us. “But it’s a matter of: what is going to draw someone to one place or be made to feel alive by a list? I want to see it look like you’ve thought about the bottles that you’ve got. It’s easy just to put random great bottles on a list – you could have eight pages of random bottles – but, especially if you’ve got a small or medium-sized list, why have you chosen wines to go on there? What are you telling me as far as what your ethos is? It’s not necessarily a story [that I’m looking for], but a thread of something that’s going through it. What have you done to mindfully construct this list? Is there an IQ here?”

When Queena sits down in a restaurant, she starts with a glass of Champagne, and then waits to see what delights, or insights, are to be found in the wine list.

“I'm not personally drawn to any particular category,” she says. “I want to know what they've done, what the list looks like in place among the food.”

London’s new wave

In London at the moment, Queena is particularly excited about “a different type of somm” coming through, in the industry. “For me it’s about giving them the respect that not all somms want to study,” she says. “Before, more were going down the Court of Master Sommeliers route. And the study is good because it fills gaps. But there are so many amazing heads of wine and buyers out there creating wine lists, that have not gone down the previously traditional route.

“And I think what’s happening is very special – with how many somms there are across different aspects of wine. What happens, it means they all make friends and they’re all sharing knowledge every weekend with each other, with their bottles, and because we have this density of passion around wine, they’ve got an accelerated learning curve from different things.”

Through this collaborative approach, Queena is excited herself to be constantly introduced to new producers, and perhaps those doing less traditional things. She is noticing that people’s understanding of natural wine is shifting as a result.

“This whole ‘natural wine’ thing – that word is here to stay. However, it’s now about understanding natural wine and wanting clean natural. And that means being a great quality wine, which has had low intervention or they’re doing the right things, but the winery is clean, the winemaking is clean, the whole process is different.”

The Red Stars

Queena is noticing that many small bars who may have a so-called ‘natural’ focus, are eschewing the “negative connotations” associated with the label of ‘natural wine bar’. She names some of new crop of Red Stars as such: Dan’s and Tempo (“all very low intervention slanted”), Plates (“all about regenerative farming”) and Half Cut Market (a “relaxed” venue with a “one pager” of a wine list nonetheless incorporating “all five colours; every single wine there is healthy, clean, and at a great price point”).

What some of these venues also share is their size. “I’m thrilled to be able to give some of these smaller places a voice, like Half Cut Market and Luna (it’s upstairs-downstairs). I personally want to visit more of these smaller places that are more low-key, where people want to go and hang. This is very important for the future of wine. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a natty wine bar, but it might be – Dan’s is a natty wine bar, but it’s clean and it has a vibe and a heart.”

She’s also partial to a pub that just so happens to serve excellent wine, hence her keenly updated reviews for Drapers Arms in Islington and The Red Lion & Sun, in Highgate. “I absolutely love that,” she says, “because it’s taking an English institution – the pub – and, actually, you can drink nice wine there but still have that tradition.”

Overall, she cites her latest collection of listings as “a split between the local place and more expensive, and then also classic lists versus these low-intervention places. And then Poon’s! Who would have thought that I would give Poon’s a Red Star? But it was so beautifully done, so mindfully put together.”

The latest wine list trends

“I have seen a lot more new regions, esoteric grapes – just this exploration,” says Queena of London’s wine lists right now . “I think what’s happened is that consumers are interested. And so you see somms responding. So even in Bonheur, even with that classic list, there’s a few things there that might be a little bit off the beaten path.”

Then there’s the uptick in impressive by-the-glass selections, which Queena puts down to an increased adoption of Coravin systems – a boon for guests who either want to save money or preserve health, by choosing glasses over bottles.

January in London

It’s been a tumultuous time for the London hospitality scene, with some shock closures.

“What’s interesting is we have these places closing down,” Queena says. “But you also have loads of places opening up. I feel like a yo-yo!”

As the UK capital moves through a notoriously quiet month for bookings, our London Ambassador describes the mood as one of “cautious optimism”. And at the very least, she’ll still be out and about “doing my thing because,” she tells us, “I think it’s really important to support the restaurants in this time when most people are pulling back.”

You heard her! And you now have a new set of locations to visit. Check out the full London guide.