This new, under-the-radar luxury Chinese comes from a dynamic duo of Hakkasan alumni: chef Tong Chee Hwee, who won the Hanway Place restaurant its Michelin star, and restaurant director Alan Tang. Royal Garden Hotel, 2-24 Kensington High Street, W8 4PT, .uk Try and save, space, too, for London’s original Beijing duck, carved tableside and served in two immaculate courses. The skill of the kitchen means this is a good place to try dim sum that require intricate preparation: poached Beijing dumplings filled with chicken, prawns and dried shiitake, perhaps, though classics such as plump har gau and a superlative rendition of salt and pepper squid are pulled off with equal aplomb. The daytime nature of dim sum means that the setting is as mesmerising on winter lunchtimes and autumn afternoons as at the height of summer, though the food does a sterling job of competing with the view, though some diners may wish to avert their eyes from the calorie count displayed next to each dish on the menu. This 10th-floor hotel restaurant is one of London’s classiest Chinese, with views over the treetops of Kensington Gardens to the Albert Hall and Memorial all the way to the London Eye and Shard in the distance. Note that lunch is only served from Wednesday to Saturday, so expect to book well ahead or turn up on the off-chance of a walk-in (they do exist). Highlights are too many to mention, but for sheer smile-inducing joy the rabbit-filled glutinous puffs shaped like carrots should not be missed, while cheung fun reinvented as Isle of Mull seared scallop sandwiched between crisp sheets of honey-glazed Ibérico pork makes all other renditions of the dish feel superfluous. The results taste closer to what one might expect to find in a cutting-edge restaurant in Shanghai than anywhere else in London, with endless innovation matched to an expert understanding of flavour so that each miniature masterpiece is savoury and refined, subtle and sublime. The only two-Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant outside China is a slightly more accessibly priced option at lunch when in addition to the 15-course “Touch the Heart” tasting menu (£175), dim sum is offered by the individually priced dumpling, from £3 to £16. The crab and pork dumplings, sweet and savoury, are the best of the lot if anything, cold plates such as slivers of pork wrapped around crushed garlic are the tastiest things on offer here.ĥ Henrietta Street, WC2E 8PS and Unit R04, Centre Point, 11 St Giles Square, WC2H 8AP, In truth, it helps not to know the hype, as the dumplings are competent rather than compelling, though the sight of a troupe of white-masked chefs beavering away in the glass-walled kitchen with the precision of surgeons to ensure that each stock-filled dumpling arrives at the table with the required 18 pleats is undeniably impressive. The story goes that Din Tai Fung was founded by Chinese immigrant Yang Bing-yi in Taiwan in 1972 and the brand now extends to a global empire of over 150 restaurants famous for the house speciality of xiao long bao, the Shanghainese soup dumplings that once earned the Hong Kong Din Tai Fung a Michelin star (it makes do with a Bib Gourmand these days).
The addition of a Centre Point branch means that queues have subsided at the Covent Garden outpost of an international chain that arrived in London in 2018 with an intriguing backstory. Deep-pocketed diners should check out Royal China Club a few doors up where the dumplings are made from scratch from premium ingredients, though the atmosphere isn’t nearly as joyous as here, where large tables of Chinese families feel straight out of a Hong Kong Sunday.Ģ4-26 Baker Street, W1U 3BZ, .uk Illustrated menus make this a user-friendly place for diners new to dim sum (order spicy chicken feet and you can’t say you weren’t warned), with quality high enough to ensure Cantonese connoisseurs will leave impressed with the likes of fresh-as-a-daisy prawn and chive dumplings or roast pork buns as fluffy as cotton wool. The original Queensway outpost closed during lockdown but the cooking at the Baker Street Royal China has, somehow, always tasted better, even though the dim sum for all five branches is prepared in a central kitchen.
New West End Company BRANDPOST | PAID CONTENTīefore anyone knew the difference between har gau and siu mai, queues would form every weekend outside the Bayswater branch of this mid-market Chinese chain in the days when queueing was unusual, not ubiquitous.
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