Hyde Park Corner, Chinese Restaurant Guide

This “atmospheric Cantonese restaurant in the Dorchester” was designed by the late Sir David Tang 20 years ago, and “whisks you to 1930s Shanghai when you walk in”. “One of the finest Chinese restaurants in London”, its menu lists “some mind-boggling but expensive dishes”, such as Japanese size 18 abalone at £388 or Peking duck with 125 grams of Kristal caviar at £480. Dip your toe in the water with the dim sum menu (which is served in the evenings as well as at lunchtimes). Or, from late 2024, pop into the Harrods Food Halls, where there’s a new ‘China Tang’ stall.

2021 Review: The very acme of dining glamour when it opened in 1968 – the late Sir Terence Conran once hailed it as a breakthrough in restaurant design – this expensive Chinese stalwart in Knightsbridge is now showing its age. “I used to love this place but the food is now old-fashioned and hasn’t kept up with the times” is the politest of the last survey’s feedback. Other reporters are blunter: “remarkable it continues to have any customers…”

This luxurious international hotel chain (whose 300-room original is the oldest hotel in Hong Kong) opened just south of trafficky Hyde Park Corner in September 2023. Its “extravagantly decorated” ground-floor Cantonese dining room has received a mixed rep in the newspapers (in his January 2024 review, Giles Coren in The Times said it “didn’t pass muster”) but our reports suggest a fair performance by the standards of posh hotel chains. Its advocates say it’s “very expensive but faultless” with “amazing” and “perfectly served” cuisine (particularly classic dishes such as seafood dumplings, char sui and Peking Duck, which all receive a thumbs-up). And service is praised as “really helpful, accommodating and professional”. Those who are less convinced don’t damn it but say “it’s overpriced for food that’s only OK, and served in a windowless room”. (There’s also Brooklands at roof level, see also).

Empress MiMi – keeper of the most revered Chinese culinary secrets – is the fictional inspiration for Samyukta Nair’s chic, Shanghai-inspired three-year-old: “an old converted Mayfair townhouse turned into a really charming three-storey restaurant”. Feedback on its luxurious Chinese cuisine is relatively limited, but says that “every dish is spot-on”. It is fully priced though, especially if you start straying into the ‘signature’ parts of the menu featuring lobster, caviar and Peking duck.