When a country is as vast as China, the idea of it having a singular cuisine swiftly teeters into the ridiculous. So it is: going for a Chinese might mean plates from Sichuan and Hunan, blistering with numbing spice; it might mean the sweet seafood of Cantonese cooking; or perhaps the colourful precision of the sweet-and-salt of dishes from Jiangsu. It might mean high end or low; exacting or cheerily shapeless; food for bottles of beer or pots of tea. It can be, then, hard to know where to start — at the local spot on the corner, in the warren of Chinatown, or among the moneyed of Mayfair?
And so we radioed for help. Ahead of the lunar new year, some of the biggest names in Chinese cooking offer their favourites, at both the peak and foot of pricing. We’ve cut repeat mentions of a few names — A Wong, Imperial Treasure and the Royal China Club had multiple shout-outs (Filipino-born chef John Javier was at pains to mention their lobster dumplings are the best he’s ever had) — but below are London’s best Chinese restaurants, as chosen by those in the know.
