Westminster, Taiwanese Restaurant Guide

2021 Review: “Sublime, very different, Taiwanese cuisine” delivering “flavourful and stylish” dishes in a “super-cool setting” (evoking a 1930s tea parlour) makes this “tiny but beautiful” three-year-old on the edge of Chinatown many reporters’ “new favourite place for Chinese-style food”. Owned by the people behind Bao, its “subtly flavoured delights” include “brilliant tea-based cocktails” and a “lovely selection of the teas themselves”.

“A first-choice Asian restaurant” – say fans of this “friendly, buzzy” chain serving “delicious” Taiwanese filled buns that can constitute “a quick bite for lunch, or a longer meal with friends”. Launched as a street-food stand in 2012 by Erchen Chang, her husband Shing Tat and his sister Wai Ting Chung, the group is now backed by the all-conquering JKS Restaurants and opened its sixth venue in Battersea Power Station in 2023. Top Tip – “beef with black pepper sauce and rice is a must-order at King’s Cross”.

“Course after course of utter deliciousness!” – comprised of “Chinese tapas that never ceases to impress” – has won renown for this Pimlico veteran, whose “very different 18-course tasting menu is tailored in terms of spiciness and dietary preferences” in discussion with the staff. It’s a formula that’s served the Peng family well for over 40 years (although their personal service is not quite as intrinsic to a visit as once it was). “As other authentic Chinese cuisine has become available across London”, it is perhaps no longer the leading destination it once was, although all diners feel “the food deserves its excellent reputation”. “The venue does not create much in the way of ambience” however and it is often noted in feedback that a meal here has become “very expensive now”. Top Tip – “don’t eat all day before you go”.

“A first-choice Asian restaurant” – say fans of this “friendly, buzzy” chain serving “delicious” Taiwanese filled buns that can constitute “a quick bite for lunch, or a longer meal with friends”. Launched as a street-food stand in 2012 by Erchen Chang, her husband Shing Tat and his sister Wai Ting Chung, the group is now backed by the all-conquering JKS Restaurants and opened its sixth venue in Battersea Power Station in 2023. Top Tip – “beef with black pepper sauce and rice is a must-order at King’s Cross”.

2021 Review: For a fun night out with the girls, promising early-days reports on this slick new cocktail and dining concept, in Marylebone, from the former CEO of the Ping Pong dim sum chain (similar DNA here), which mixes tasty bao buns and other Taiwanese, street-food fare (‘inspired by night street markets of Taipei and Jiufen’, apparently) with yummy cocktails, and sleek design (to ‘take you all the way back to the 1950s and 1960s teahouses of Xinyi district’).

“A first-choice Asian restaurant” – say fans of this “friendly, buzzy” chain serving “delicious” Taiwanese filled buns that can constitute “a quick bite for lunch, or a longer meal with friends”. Launched as a street-food stand in 2012 by Erchen Chang, her husband Shing Tat and his sister Wai Ting Chung, the group is now backed by the all-conquering JKS Restaurants and opened its sixth venue in Battersea Power Station in 2023. Top Tip – “beef with black pepper sauce and rice is a must-order at King’s Cross”.

“A first-choice Asian restaurant” – say fans of this “friendly, buzzy” chain serving “delicious” Taiwanese filled buns that can constitute “a quick bite for lunch, or a longer meal with friends”. Launched as a street-food stand in 2012 by Erchen Chang, her husband Shing Tat and his sister Wai Ting Chung, the group is now backed by the all-conquering JKS Restaurants and opened its sixth venue in Battersea Power Station in 2023. Top Tip – “beef with black pepper sauce and rice is a must-order at King’s Cross”.

This “buzzy Taiwanese café” in Peckham is a “friendly neighbourhood joint” that does a good trade in “reliably tasty bao buns”; and has a “wonderful” brunch menu at weekends (“spicy beans with hash browns; kimchi pancake with onsen egg and smoked salmon and egg bao buns are all ‘must-tries”). There’s also a Daddy Bao in Tooting and a Master Bao in Westfield Shepherd’s Bush.

“Our teen kids love this place and we do too!” – so say fans of Frank Leung’s Tooting venue, which provides steamed Taiwanese buns, washed down with decent cocktails, in an atmospheric neighbourhood setting. See also ‘Mr Bao’ in Peckham.

An international Taiwanese-based chain with a trio of UK outlets in Covent Garden, Selfridges and most recently Centre Point (“with a great view”). To well-travelled connoisseurs of the original, they are “more upmarket here and more expensive too” (“I lived in Asia for several years and ate at a DTF at least weekly, but here they’ve jacked the prices up to a level that is taking the p***”). But to the uninitiated, they can seem like “the best ever dumplings”, and – Top Menu Tip – even their sternest critics say “don’t ignore the Xian Long Bao” (soup dumplings).