Buckhurst Hill, Chinese Restaurant Guide

“Exciting, innovative, interesting Asian-fusion dishes at great value prices” mean you should keep an eye out for this easily-missed venue amidst busy Clapton high street. The food is primarily Chinese, but flavour and fun, not foodie purity, is first priority (Sichuan Negronis anyone?). It’s not super-plush, but fans say “the ambience has improved recently with a refurb”.

2022 Review: No feedback this year on this distant Chinese restaurant, near Royal Albert Dock DLR. If you are looking to eat in these parts though – while watching the take-offs and landings at nearby London City Airport – it is worth knowing about.

2023 Review: This “tiny place near Truman’s old brewery” serves an “excellent and authentic take on Sichuan cuisine, in a calm atmosphere, away from the agitation of Brick Lane”. Top Tip – “‘numb and spicy’ dumplings live up to their name”.

This “always reliable” and “slightly upmarket” Cantonese group “remains the standard that all other dim sum places should be judged against – exemplary is an overused term here but is very much justified”. But a somewhat dark cloud has hung over the operation since its prominent Baker Street branch was stripped of its licence to sell alcohol and fined £360,000 after a series of Home Office raids over six years discovered multiple cases of illegal immigrants working, in one case for 66 hours a week at almost half the minimum wage. As of August 2024, the Fulham Road branch is ‘Temporarily Closed’.

2022 Review: “The atmosphere is downbeat but the food is addictive” at this Chinese canteen near Angel, which serves “tasty, spicy food with lots and lots of pepper”. “Try and avoid the more conventional Chinese restaurant dishes for an authentic regional treat.”

“Great hand-pulled noodles” – “and the best cold starters” – are the highlights of a meal at this Spitalfields canteen featuring “spicy pot-stickers” from Shaanxi province in northwest China. (‘Biang’ is apparently an onomatopoeia, said to resemble the sound of noodle dough hitting a work surface).

“Authentically fiery dishes” light up the menu at this City Road restaurant where head chef Zhang Xiao Zhong hails from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan – a third-generation chef, his grandfather was personal chef to Deng Xiaoping, China’s leader through the 1980s.

“Consistently excellent dim sum” served in a vibey setting that “even after so many years is still a fun, cool place to be” ensures continuing plaudits for these sleek venues (founded by Alan Yau in 2004 and nowadays an international brand owned by Tao Group Hospitality with three siblings in India and one in Saudi Arabia). Food aside, its two London branches are very different – the original, intimate ground floor and basement in Soho contrasting with the more “spectacular”, large, “light-filled” modern unit in the City’s Broadgate development. Both scored highly this year – “service appears to have become a bit less standoffish”; and “the only drawback is eating too much!”. Top Menu Tips – “Cheung fun, Venison Puff, Sichuan pork wonton and Wagyu beef puff are some of the tastiest things you can eat”.

“A takeaway hole in the wall with some seating” characterises the branches of Pui Sing, Cheong Yew & Mo Kwok’s HK-inspired group, which specialises in Siu Mei (“authentic roasted Chinese meats”) served in “generous portions” plus noodles – “top Hong Kong food, affordable and better than at ‘normal’ sit-down restaurants”. Towards the end of 2024, they will open their largest site to-date: a 50-cover restaurant in Ealing’s Filmworks development.

“Authentic, mostly fiery, Sichuan cooking” is showcased at this modern pub-conversion, “conveniently a few minutes’ walk along the canal from King’s Cross”. The menu includes plenty of items that in Britain used to be hidden away behind untranslated Chinese characters – chicken feet, frog legs, pig intestines – and “given the large plates, you need a big group to do it justice”.

“Well-executed Chinese and Japanese fare (if at strictly expense account-only prices)” from Singapore-born chef Peter Ho, wins consistent praise this year at this plush dining room. Part of the Four Seasons hotel in the extremely imposing former headquarters of the Port of London Authority (built in 1922), near Tower Hill, this august chamber “very much feels like the high-end hotel restaurant that it is”.

2022 Review: “A basic restaurant with many fiery dishes” – this student-friendly canteen in Bloomsbury is known for its good prices and lip-tingling Sichuan noodle dishes.

“Being situated so high up in the Shard”, this glossy Asian venue (part of the HK-based Aqua group) on the 33rd floor of the UK’s highest building has “one of, if not THE best outlook in London”, making it “perfect for any celebration, with atmospheric lighting to boot in the evening”. The stratospheric expense of a meal here, though, dampens its ratings. Fans say, “yes, you pay a premium, but the food is amazing” and “beautifully presented”. But even such supporters can still leave “feeling totally fleeced”, or that it’s “insanely reliant on the outlook” given a bill that “arrives like a dragon’s fire in the face”. This is particularly keenly felt by those who encountered incidents of “haphazard” service.

“The views are fantastic, especially if you get a window seat” at this 35th-floor venue at the top of the Shard. It’s open from breakfast (Asian or Western) onwards, via lunch and afternoon tea to dinner, when there’s an Asian-inflected menu where items like Glazed Cauliflower “Steak” with Couscous, Coconut & Lime Foam rub shoulders with more wholeheartedly Oriental dishes such as Bo Xao Luc Lac Five Spices Beef. Especially by the standards of the venues in the Shard, moans about prices are most notable by their absence.

For a Chinese meal in the City, a number of reporters recommend this venue at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Blackfriars (fka the Crowne Plaza, reopened post-refurb in summer 2023). The unusual name marks the debut of the Chinese national cricket team in 2009, the year the restaurant opened. Classic dishes range from dim sum and Peking duck to xiao long bao.

“Gloriously textured noodles and flavoursome sauces” draw a wide-ranging crowd (including plenty of Chinese students studying nearby) to Wei Guirong’s “friendly” Shaanxi canteen near Russell Square. It’s a sibling to Xi’an Impression near the Emirates Stadium and the new Dream Xi’an at Tower Bridge. Top Menu Tip – “for the price you pay, the cold chicken in sesame sauce and the biang biang noodles are amazing”.

“Brilliant, lip-numbing” northern Chinese cooking has put this Soho fixture from Wei Shao firmly on the map, and it serves a flexible menu of skewers, noodles and rice, wok dishes and other dim sum options. Some feel its Borough Market offshoot is “weak” by comparison (“it’s as if the Soho one benefits from the proximity of Chinatown but they don’t expect anyone with any discernment in SE1!”).

2023 Review: This modern pan-Asian in Covent Garden – an import from NYC – offers “playful dim sum”, alongside other “cut-above” dishes. There are “relaxed long tables for groups or cosy red-checked spots for two diners”, and the atmosphere is set by the “fun 90s playlist and friendly team”.