Gouqi

Summary

Fans hail an “excellent addition to the Asian fine dining scene” at this West End spring 2023 newcomer – the first solo restaurant from Tong Chee Hwee, the masterchef behind Hakkasan’s rise to global fame over the past two decades, and focused on Chinese cuisine. Our few early reports unanimously applaud the high quality of its dishes, although one does gripe about it being too pricey or with a poor ambience. (Both of these negative sentiments are echoed by Times critic Giles Coren in his May 2023 review: while acknowledging the food “is in general fine”, Giles really gives it both barrels for its “unforgivable” prices; what he considers a “horrid, horrid” location on the fringes of Trafalgar Square; and his suspicions that social media agencies have been used to paint it in an overly favourable light online).