Chinatown, Chinese Restaurant Guide

“Still a go-to if it’s roast duck you’re after” – see them hanging in the window of this 35-year-old Bayswater Cantonese and its Chinatown offshoots, which offer “consistently excellent” roast meats (pork as well as duck) in “a pretty basic environment that’s noisy and crowded”, along with “charmless service” – “bad enough to make you think twice about even going!”. A more positive way of looking at it is that “they don’t waste money on decor and service: it’s a reliable no-frills comfort-food experience”. Further outlets include Chop Chop at the Hippodrome and Colindale Bang Bang Oriental food hall (see also), plus three Little Four Seasons.

“Easy going, not too fussy, but authentic” – this family-run veteran of four decades “in the heart of Chinatown” is many people’s “favourite” Cantonese spot for “dim sum to write home about”. It’s also “not as crowded as some of the other restaurants nearby”.

“Great dim sum” backed up by more substantial Cantonese and Sichuan dishes have established this unshowy venue as one of the area‘s best bets. It’s easy to find: it’s right by the archway at the entrance to Chinatown!

“Never changing” but still “unbeatable for a cheap, quick meal in Chinatown before the theatre or similar”: this famous institution, seating 550 diners on four storeys and now its sixth decade, has always gloried in its no-frills swagger, although the hysterically rude service of yore is now merely “cold and brusque”. But ratings were undercut this year by one or two unusually disappointed regulars who feel “the food quality has declined” (“the chefs were ‘phoning it in’”: “char siu and duck were risible”).

“Still a go-to if it’s roast duck you’re after” – see them hanging in the window of this 35-year-old Bayswater Cantonese and its Chinatown offshoots, which offer “consistently excellent” roast meats (pork as well as duck) in “a pretty basic environment that’s noisy and crowded”, along with “charmless service” – “bad enough to make you think twice about even going!”. A more positive way of looking at it is that “they don’t waste money on decor and service: it’s a reliable no-frills comfort-food experience”. Further outlets include Chop Chop at the Hippodrome and Colindale Bang Bang Oriental food hall (see also), plus three Little Four Seasons.

This two-storey Cantonese venue on the main drag of Chinatown (with a branch in Colindale) is many people’s pick for “really great dim sum” (“one of the best I’ve tasted outside Hong Kong”). The main evening menu also features “consistently above-average-quality food”. Top Tip – “go early or late to beat the crowds”.

“Still a go-to if it’s roast duck you’re after” – see them hanging in the window of this 35-year-old Bayswater Cantonese and its Chinatown offshoots, which offer “consistently excellent” roast meats (pork as well as duck) in “a pretty basic environment that’s noisy and crowded”, along with “charmless service” – “bad enough to make you think twice about even going!”. A more positive way of looking at it is that “they don’t waste money on decor and service: it’s a reliable no-frills comfort-food experience”. Further outlets include Chop Chop at the Hippodrome and Colindale Bang Bang Oriental food hall (see also), plus three Little Four Seasons.

2024 Review: “Fresh and very tasty dim sum” ensures that this 30-year-old Cantonese over three storeys on the edge of Chinatown “soon fills up with regulars”. “It may be a blessing that the ambience is not exactly chic – it keeps the tourists away”.

2023 Review: “Top egg yolk buns” are a big draw at China-born architect Z He and chef Alex Peffly’s well-known Chinatown pit stop, which provides an “excellent bustling ambience and wonderful heart-filling food”.

“Blistering Sichuan food of a standard not found elsewhere” makes this well-known regional specialist “far, far better than the average Chinatown outfit”, and it’s “still going strong”. The “amazing spicy options are true to their middle China roots” – “don’t fear the chillis, just don’t eat them!”. “Service is fine – if the ambience is a little lacking, the food more than makes up for that”.

2023 Review: A “very good” modern take on classic Cantonese cuisine from Z He and Alex Peffly (of Bun House) is presented in an atmospheric “neon-lit underground parlour in Soho, with the menus on newspapers, giving a gentlemen’s club/opium den vibe”.

“Always enjoyable… especially the duck and the sesame toast!” – This marriage of Chinese chow with a gastropub vibe was originally dreamt up by group-creating genius Alan Yau (he of Wagamama, Hakkasan, Yauatcha and Busaba Eathai fame). But curiously, despite a cosy, heart-of-Soho setting and a steady stream of supportive feedback, it has never won a big following. Perhaps it’s the low-key interior or the “pub-average service”, but that’s really searching for criticism. Still, maybe the brand’s moment has come under new owners: after nearly 10 years it’s finally to spawn a sibling: a 185-cover space on Level 1 of Battersea Power Station. The aim here is more sleek and contemporary and necessarily less pub-like, so how much the pub element of its original concept will survive is unclear.

An august, high-ceilinged space in the heart of the West End – originally built as a banking hall and with the acres of marble to match – nowadays hosts this luxurious Chinese venture: the first European outpost of a 20-strong Singapore-based group, with numerous outposts in China itself. For Chinese fine dining and damn the expense, this is a consistently well-rated experience, even if it is often recommended by business-accounters, or through the gritted teeth of those who say it’s “exceptional but overpriced”. Peking Duck is a classic choice, naturally, and must be ordered in advance at £148 (£248 if you add caviar).

“The food remains exceptional” – “cheung fun and venison puffs are still raging crowd-pleasers” – at this modern Cantonese-inspired pair: the “fabulously blingy” Soho original and its follow-up in the City’s Broadgate development (there are also international branches in India and Saudi Arabia). One or two uneven reports this year raise concerns, including about “ragged service” – though, to be fair, the latter has never been great. Founded in 2004 by Alan Yau following his success with Hakkasan, the brand now sits in the hospitality portfolio of Isle of Man-based online gambling billionaire Mark Sheinberg. Top Tip – “the Infinite Yum Cha brunch on Sundays is extremely good value – and delicious”.

The “excellent”, “very flavourful” dishes at this duo in Soho and Covent Garden provide an “interesting and novel” answer to the question: “what is Indian food?” – showcasing, as they do, the distinctive Indo-Chinese cuisine developed by Hakka Chinese immigrants in Kolkata.

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”.

“Reliable, fresh-tasting offerings” make this Cantonese fixture one of the best bets “in the heart of Chinatown”. “Service is efficient and speedy”, and it is tipped for a “good variety of well-prepared dim sum” by several reporters.

This two-year-old café on the edge of Chinatown won high praise this year as a “fantastic choice for modern Hong Kong-style cuisine”, served in a “contemporary designer interior”. There’s a huge selection of dishes on the menu, and service is “very efficient”. Top Menu Tip – “fabulous crispy pork with rice (better than a lot of local competition)”.

Tipped for “cheap ’n’ cheerful” chow in the heart of Theatreland, Alex Xu’s two-year-old Chinese pitstop on the borders of Chinatown specialises in hand-pulled noodles and dishes from Gansu province in the North West of China; and in an October 2023 review, The Times’s Giles Coren described its soupy dishes as “vast and authentic”.

2023 Review: In the late 1990s, Jonathan Meades in the Times regularly hailed the Harbour City – a previous Cantonese occupant of this site on Chinatown’s main drag – as London’s top choice for dim sum. Now this latest incumbent is receiving similar treatment on the back of an Eater article hailing it as “the trendiest restaurant in central London”. According to The Observer’s Jay Rayner, the new “very different” offering is “the grand, jumpy, thrilling, chilli and numbing peppercorn hullabaloo that those of us addicted to the Sichuan repertoire just adore”.