In this guide
“Chinese food” covers more ground in London than any other label on this site. A two-starred kitchen in Victoria working through the whole country, a Sichuan room on Frith Street numbing your mouth with peppercorns, hand-pulled Shaanxi noodles in Holloway, Uyghur lamb skewers in Walthamstow and Cantonese roast duck in Bayswater are not variations on one cuisine. They are regional cooking from a country the size of Europe, filed under one word by a menu convention.
So this guide keeps them apart, and counts each against its own sources rather than blending them.
💡 The Short Version: A. Wong is the only Chinese restaurant in London with a Michelin star, and it has two. Tao Tao Ju, Plum Valley, Four Seasons, Murger Han and Etles are the most-cited after it. Barshu is the Sichuan benchmark and Etles the Uyghur one. And Xi’an Impression does the best £5 in London.
📊 The evidence behind this guide. Nothing here is ranked on one visit. This page reads three separate corpora, because these are three separate cuisines: Chinese — 13 sources, 206 citations across 112 restaurants, 46 named twice or more; Thai — 13 sources, 127 citations across 64 restaurants, 18 named twice or more; Korean — 10 sources, 130 citations across 83 restaurants, 18 named twice or more. Every count printed below comes from the venue’s own cuisine, never from another. Built on: seven independent publications across three cuisines, and four Michelin stars. Evidence rebuilt 30 August 2026 · How we rank →
Where they are
| If you are near… | Where to eat |
|---|---|
| Chinatown | Tao Tao Ju, Plum Valley, Four Seasons, Wong Kei, Chinatown Bakery, Bun House, Dumplings’ Legend, Kung Fu Noodle |
| Soho | Barshu, Noodle & Beer, Rasa Sayang |
| Mayfair & Belgravia | Kai Mayfair, Canton Blue |
| Victoria & Pimlico | A. Wong, Hunan, Shan Shui Social |
| Covent Garden | Din Tai Fung |
| The City & Aldgate | Murger Han, Dream Xi’an |
| Queensway & Paddington | Mandarin Kitchen, Gold Mine |
| King’s Cross & Bloomsbury | Master Wei |
| North London | Xi’an Impression (Holloway), Etles (Walthamstow) |
| Shoreditch & Hackney | Facing Heaven |
| South London | Dragon Castle, Silk Road (Camberwell) |
| Colindale | Bang Bang Oriental food hall |
Price guide: £ under £15 · ££ £15–£35 · £££ £40–£70 · ££££ £90+.
The most-cited Chinese restaurants
A. Wong, Victoria
££££ · 7 min from Victoria · Cited by 4 sources · Two Michelin stars, 2026
The only Chinese restaurant in London holding a Michelin star, and it holds two — the only two-starred Chinese kitchen in Europe. Andrew Wong works through the regional cooking of the whole country rather than the Cantonese repertoire London expects, and the tasting menu is organised as a journey across provinces.
The two services barely resemble each other. Dim sum at lunch is a different and far cheaper proposition than the evening tasting menu — the same kitchen, a fraction of the outlay, and the way most people should meet the restaurant first.
££££, closed Sunday and Monday, and the evening books months ahead. Seven minutes from Victoria. For a celebration or an expense account; the lunch is the one you can do on a whim.
Tao Tao Ju, Chinatown
£££ · 2 min from Leicester Square · Cited by 4 sources
Towering bamboo baskets of steamed and grilled dim sum, made fresh on site each day rather than bought in frozen, which is what separates it from most of Lisle Street. The refined end of Chinatown, and the most-cited dim sum room in this guide.
Order across both cooking methods — the steamed har gau and siu mai to judge the kitchen, then the grilled and fried baskets that most Chinatown rooms do less well. The dining room is quieter and smarter than the street outside suggests.
£££, and two minutes from Leicester Square. Good for a group or a date; it is one of the few Chinatown rooms where you can hear each other.
Plum Valley, Chinatown
£££ · Gerrard Street · Cited by 4 sources
The black-fronted Gerrard Street room, family-run, and one of the four most-cited Chinese restaurants in London — named by every masthead in these sources and by three separate video creators.
More than sixty handmade dim sum options, made fresh daily by a dedicated team of dim sum chefs, in a considerably smarter setting than most of Chinatown. That combination — award-level dumplings without the banqueting-hall clatter — is why it turns up on every list.
£££, three minutes from Leicester Square, and the Chinatown room to pick for a date rather than a family lunch.
Four Seasons, Bayswater
££ · 84 Queensway · also Chinatown and Colindale · Cited by 4 sources
London’s benchmark Hong Kong-style roast duck, and the Queensway room is the original — the business started here in 1990 before it ever reached Chinatown. The most-cited Chinese restaurant across every guide read for this page.
The roast duck hangs in the window and is carved to order: lacquered skin, the meat still moist, served over rice or on its own with plum sauce. That is what to order and effectively what the queue outside is for. The rest of the Cantonese menu is competent rather than the point.
££ and no bookings — turn up, expect to wait, and go early evening before the duck sells out.
Murger Han, City of London
££ · Cited by 4 sources
Shaanxi cooking from China’s north-west, and named for the murger — rou jia mo, slow-cooked spiced meat packed into a flatbread bun, which is the dish to order and one of the cheapest serious lunches in the City.
Alongside it, hand-pulled noodles made to order, cold liangpi noodles and cumin-heavy lamb — the Muslim-influenced cooking of Xi’an rather than anything Cantonese. Four sources name it and almost no tourists find it.
££, walk-in, and quick — this is a lunch counter more than a dining room. There are two sites; the Euston one on Eversholt Street is the original.
Etles, Walthamstow — Uyghur
££ · 235 Hoe Street · closed Mondays · Cited by 4 sources
Uyghur cooking from Xinjiang — a Turkic-Muslim tradition in China’s far west that is barely represented anywhere else in Britain, and the reason this entry is worth a journey to Walthamstow.
The signatures are hand-pulled laghman noodles, cut and stretched to order and served under cumin-heavy lamb, and the lamb skewers grilled over charcoal with cumin and chilli. There is polo — the Uyghur rice pilaf — and thin-skinned lamb dumplings. Closer to Central Asian food than to anything in Chinatown, which is exactly the point.
Walk-in, cheap, and family-run. Take the Victoria line to the end; nothing on this page is further from a tourist route.
Regional Chinese
Most of London’s Chinese food is Cantonese. These kitchens are not, and the difference is the whole reason to seek them out.
Barshu, Soho — Sichuan
£££ · 28 Frith Street · Cited by 3 sources
The restaurant that introduced London to real Sichuan cooking in 2006, when the city still thought Chinese food meant Cantonese. On the corner of Frith Street and Shaftesbury Avenue, on the edge of Chinatown rather than in it.
The signature is water-boiled beef — a misleading name for beef poached in a bath of chilli oil and Sichuan peppercorn — alongside dry-fried green beans and the numbing-hot dishes the region is built on. Heat levels are marked on the menu and the marking is honest, which not every Sichuan menu in London can claim.
£££, moderate noise, and two minutes from Leicester Square. Good for a group that wants to share properly.
Xi’an Impression, Holloway — Shaanxi
£ · 117 Benwell Road · BYOB · no bookings · Cited by 3 sources
Shaanxi cooking from China’s north-west, in a small room opposite the Emirates Stadium — and the reason people cross London for it is the noodles.
Liangpi cold noodles are the signature: chewy, hand-cut, dressed in chilli oil and vinegar and eaten cold, which sounds unpromising and is the best thing on the menu. Beside them, hand-pulled biang biang noodles — one enormous belt-wide noodle per bowl — and the Xi’an burger, the same rou jia mo bun that Murger Han is named for.
Tiny, cash-friendly, walk-in. Impossible to get into on a match day, and easy on any other.
Master Wei, Bloomsbury — Shaanxi
££ · 13 Cosmo Place · Cited by 3 sources
The same tradition from Guirong Wei, who was the only female head chef in Xi’an before she came to London and opened Xi’an Impression. This is her own place, in Bloomsbury, and the cooking is the more polished of the two.
Biang biang noodles and liangpi again, plus dumplings in chilli oil and the cumin lamb that anchors Shaanxi menus. The room is small and the noodles are pulled to order, so it is worth watching the pass.
Walk-in, and a short walk from Holborn or Russell Square. If you want the story as well as the food, this is the one to choose between the pair.
Hunan, Pimlico
££££ · 6 min from Sloane Square · Cited by 3 sources
No menu at all. You tell them what you dislike and dishes keep arriving until you say stop — a leave-it-to-us format that is among the most unusual ways to eat in London, and has run this way for decades.
The cooking is Hunanese rather than Sichuan, which means chilli heat without the numbing peppercorn — sharper, more sour, and served as a long procession of small plates rather than a few large ones. Expect fifteen to twenty dishes; expect not to recognise several of them.
Book, and go hungry. Tell them your budget as well as your dislikes when you sit down — the format has no other brake on it.
Noodle & Beer, Chinatown — Sichuan
££ · 27 Wardour Street · kitchen to 4am · Cited by 2 sources
Sichuan cooking built for the small hours: the kitchen runs to 4am from Thursday to Saturday, which makes it one of the genuinely late options in central London rather than one that merely claims to be.
Chilli-oil noodles, dry pot and skewers rather than a banqueting menu — food designed to be eaten with beer at two in the morning. Loud, bright, and full of people who have been somewhere else first.
Walk-in. The daytime version is a perfectly ordinary Chinatown noodle shop; the reason it is here is the hour.
Rasa Sayang, Chinatown — Malaysian-Peranakan
££ · 5 Macclesfield Street · Cited by 3 sources
Peranakan cooking — Chinese technique married to Malay spicing, from the Straits communities of Malaysia and Singapore — and reportedly the only halal restaurant in Chinatown, which is a genuine gap it fills.
Nasi lemak — coconut rice with sambal, anchovies, peanuts and egg — and Singapore chilli crab are the dishes to order, with char kway teow and Hainanese chicken rice behind them. The room is plain and the cooking is not.
Walk-in, cheap, and busy at lunch. One of the few places in Chinatown where the menu is not Cantonese at all.
Mandarin Kitchen, Queensway — Cantonese seafood
£££ · 14–16 Queensway · Cited by 1 source
The lobster noodles are the reason to come, and the dish most London Chinese restaurants are quietly measured against: a whole lobster over ginger and spring onion noodles, served in the shell.
Beyond it, a full Cantonese seafood menu — steamed fish, razor clams, salt-and-pepper squid — in a room that has not been redecorated in living memory and is all the better for it. The clientele is largely Cantonese-speaking, which is the usual sign.
Book at weekends. Not cheap once the lobster arrives, and worth it once.
Gold Mine, Queensway — Cantonese roasts
££ · walk-in · Cited by 1 source
Roast duck hanging in the window and carved to order, cheaper than Chinatown for the same thing — which is why two independent creators as well as the mastheads name it.
The roast duck is the order, on rice or on its own; roast pork and char siu hang beside it. It is a small, plain room on Queensway with a queue at peak and a fast turnover, and the carving happens in front of you.
Duck sells out — go early evening. Walk-in, cash-friendly, and about two minutes from Bayswater.
Dim sum
Dim sum is Chinese, so it belongs on this page — but it has enough rooms in London to need its own, and The Best Dim Sum in London compares 15 of them properly, with the trolley rooms and the booking-required ones separated out.
The short version: A. Wong in Victoria is the two-starred lunch and the most-cited dim sum in the city; Royal China in Marylebone and Yauatcha in Soho are the reliable mid-range rooms; Dumplings’ Legend and Joy King Lau are the Chinatown standbys; and Pearl Liang near Paddington is the one that is worth the odd location.
The Chinatown institutions
Wong Kei, Chinatown
££ · 41–43 Wardour Street · Cited by 3 sources
One of the largest Chinese restaurants in Britain at around five hundred covers over several floors, and for decades famous less for the food than for the brusqueness of the service — a reputation the staff leaned into until it became the reason people went.
The menu is enormous and the point is not refinement: roast meats over rice, wonton soup, and single-plate Cantonese cooking at prices nothing central can match. Cash was the rule for years.
£, walk-in, fast, and loud. Three minutes from Piccadilly Circus. Not a place to linger, and it does not pretend otherwise.
Chinatown Bakery, Newport Place
£ · Cited by 3 sources
Egg tarts, bolo bao and taiyaki made in the window on Newport Place, at bakery prices — and the queue is usually visible from the Chinatown gate, which is the simplest way to find it.
The egg tart is the thing: a wobbling custard in flaky pastry, served warm from the tray. Bolo bao — the sugar-crusted pineapple bun, which contains no pineapple — is the other order, and the taiyaki are made to order in fish-shaped irons.
£, walk-in. Named by three independent sources, which is more than most sit-down restaurants in this guide manage.
Dumplings’ Legend, Chinatown
££ · 15–16 Gerrard Street · Cited by 2 sources
A glass-walled kitchen on Gerrard Street where the xiao long bao are folded in front of the queue — the theatre is deliberate and the technique is real.
Xiao long bao are the signature: Shanghainese soup dumplings, pleated by hand and steamed to order, and there are forty-odd other dim sum options behind them. Shanghainese rather than Cantonese, which is worth knowing before you order.
££, walk-in, three minutes from Leicester Square. Go at an odd hour; the window queue is the price of the front-row seat.
Din Tai Fung, Covent Garden
£££ · Cited by 2 sources
Xiao long bao folded to eighteen pleats behind glass — the Taiwanese chain Ken Hom put in the New York Times’ world top ten, and this was its first London site.
The xiao long bao are the entire proposition and the eighteen-pleat standard is genuinely enforced: thin skins, hot soup inside, eaten with black vinegar and ginger. Truffle and crab versions cost more and are not better. Noodles and greens fill out the rest.
£££ and it books weeks ahead; walk-in queues are long at peak. Centre Point is the larger of the two sites and has a bar lounge, which is where to wait.
Thai, Korean and Japanese
These are separate cuisines, not sub-types of Chinese cooking, and each has its own guide with far more in it than this page could carry.
- The Best Thai Restaurants in London — 19 restaurants, arranged by region: Isaan from the north-east is sour, fermented and chilli-driven, Southern Thai is coconut-rich and hotter again.
- The Best Korean Restaurants in London — 16 restaurants, including the New Malden strip, where one of Europe’s largest Korean communities has the grills and bakeries to match.
- The Best Japanese Restaurants in London — 20 restaurants, split by format rather than price: omakase counter, yakitori grill, izakaya, ramen shop.
Best value
Chinese food is where London’s cheap eating is strongest, and almost none of it is in a restaurant with tablecloths.
- Xi’an Impression, Holloway — a £5 Xi’an beef bun, and BYOB, so the drinks cost nothing either. Cited by 3 sources
- Chinatown Bakery, Newport Place — egg tarts and bolo bao at bakery prices. Cited by 3 sources
- Bun House, Chinatown — steamed bao from a shopfront. Cited by 3 sources
- Kung Fu Noodle, Chinatown — noodles pulled to order in the window, the cheapest proper cooked meal there. Cited by 2 sources
- Kung Fu Burger, Shaftesbury Avenue — a kiosk with no seating doing a shredded pork belly bun under a tenner. Cash only. Cited by 2 sources
- Master Wei, Bloomsbury — biang biang noodles around £10 from the chef who introduced them to London. Cited by 3 sources
Food halls and supermarkets
- Bang Bang Oriental, Colindale — the biggest Asian food hall in Britain, with a Four Seasons counter serving the same roast duck as the Queensway restaurant for less.
- Chinatown’s supermarkets — Loon Fung and See Woo sell roast meats by weight over the counter. Half a roast duck to take away costs a fraction of a sit-down plate.
- Arcade Food Hall at Centre Point carries several Chinese and East Asian counters if you want one dish rather than a table.
Also named, with less behind them
Everything else the Chinese sources carry by two or more independent publications.
| Venue | Where | Price | Sources | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Silk Road | Camberwell | £ | 2 | Xinjiang cooking in south London — big plate chicken, hand-cut noodles |
| Facing Heaven | Hackney | ££ | 2 | Sichuan in a Hackney railway arch |
| Golden Phoenix | Chinatown | ££ | 2 | Dim sum through the day, quieter than its neighbours |
| Chinese Tapas House | Chinatown | ££ | 2 | Small plates rather than a banquet, which Chinatown does rarely |
| Cafe TPT | Chinatown | £ | 2 | Late Cantonese canteen, open past midnight |
| The Eight | Chinatown | ££ | 2 | Cantonese, and one of the better-lit rooms on Gerrard Street |
| Orient London | Chinatown | £££ | 2 | Four floors, dim sum trolleys at weekends |
| Dream Xi’an | Aldgate | ££ | 2 | Shaanxi again, on the eastern edge of the City |
| Shan Shui Social | Victoria | £££ | 2 | Cantonese in Nova, near A. Wong and a third of the price |
| Canton Blue | Belgravia | ££££ | 2 | The Peninsula hotel’s Cantonese room, priced accordingly |
| Kai Mayfair | Mayfair | ££££ | 2 | Held a star until recently; still on two guides’ lists |
| Yi-Ban | Royal Docks | ££ | 2 | Dim sum by the water at the ExCeL end of the DLR |
| Pochawa Grill | Chinatown | £££ | 2 | Korean barbecue on the Chinatown grid |
What to know
- Dim sum is a lunch service at most traditional halls, finishing around 5pm. Yauatcha and Dragon Castle are the exceptions.
- Chinatown rewards knowing where you are going and punishes browsing. Twelve of its addresses are named by two or more independent sources; the rest are not.
- Chinatown is not the whole story. The most-cited Chinese cooking in London is spread from Victoria to Walthamstow, and several of the best rooms are nowhere near Gerrard Street.
- A. Wong’s dim sum lunch is materially cheaper than dinner and covers the same kitchen.
- Four restaurants on this page hold a Michelin star, and nothing else here has been judged by anyone. Read the counts as agreement between critics, not as a verdict.
- Service charge of 12.5% is discretionary and standard.
Continue planning your London trip
- 🍽️ Eat in London: Restaurants, Food Markets & Quick Food Hub
- 💷 Cheap Eats in London
- 🥟 The Best Dim Sum in London
- 🍛 The Best Indian Restaurants in London
- 🌿 Best Vegetarian and Vegan Restaurants
- 🍜 Soho Area Guide
- 🎭 Covent Garden Area Guide
Common questions
What is the best Chinese restaurant in London?
A. Wong in Victoria is the only Chinese restaurant in London holding a Michelin star, and it holds two. Andrew Wong works through the regional cooking of the whole country rather than settling into Cantonese, and the dim sum lunch is the cheaper way in. Four other restaurants are named by four independent sources each: Tao Tao Ju, Plum Valley, Four Seasons and Etles.
Is Chinatown worth eating in?
Yes, if you pick carefully. Tao Tao Ju and Plum Valley are the two most-cited Chinatown rooms, Barshu sits on its edge doing proper Sichuan, and Dumplings' Legend is the xiao long bao standby. Twelve Chinatown addresses in this guide are named by two or more independent sources; the ones with picture menus in the window generally are not.
Where do I get the best dim sum in London?
Tao Tao Ju in Chinatown is the most-cited, making it fresh on site daily. Dim Sum Library in Covent Garden and Dim Sum & Duck at King's Cross are next on three sources each. Yauatcha in Soho serves it all day, and Dragon Castle at Elephant and Castle does it at about half the central price.
What is the difference between the Chinese regions on this page?
Sichuan is numbing and chilli-heavy, from the peppercorn rather than the chilli alone. Shaanxi means hand-pulled biang biang noodles and the flatbread sandwich called a rou jia mo. Cantonese is the roast meats and dim sum most British menus are built on. Uyghur cooking, from the far north-west, is closer to Central Asia — cumin, lamb and hand-pulled noodles. Hunan is hotter than Sichuan but without the numbing.
Where can I eat East Asian food in London cheaply?
Kung Fu Noodle in Chinatown pulls noodles to order and is the cheapest proper cooked meal there. Xi'an Impression does a beef bun for around £5 and is BYOB. Chinatown Bakery is named by three sources and sells egg tarts at bakery prices.
