Once upon a time, going for a Chinese in London meant Cantonese in Chinatown. That central London enclave, packed with everything from bakeries and grocers to Chinese doctors and travel agents, remains many Londoners’ first experience of Chinese food. But an influx of East Asian students — as well as Brits’ growing realisation that there’s a whole lot more to Chinese food than what expats brought back from Hong Kong — has, over the past decade, led to an explosion of regional Chinese cooking in London, not only from beyond the borders of Guangdong (formerly Canton province) but beyond the borders of Chinatown.
The fiery flavours of Sichuan province, famous for the lip-numbing sensation of Sichuan pepper, have become increasingly familiar for much of this century. But how about exploring fiery Hunan cuisine, sour and spicy Xi’an cooking or the central Asian-influenced dishes from Xinjiang in the far north-west of China?
