Best restaurants in London's Chinatown

If only Chinatown could be softly cushioned, like the hours-marinated pork belly between soft fluffy dough in baozi. Instead, Chinatown is bordered by Leicester Square and Soho, the latter’s hectic streets more palatable than the former due to its restaurants and bars.

Londoners can tolerate the insufferable crowds of tourists outside the Leicester Square Tube exits just long enough to make their way to Chinatown (but would prefer to get there via Soho). The keyword here is tolerate because the best restaurants in Chinatown are worth it.

Old Town 97

Let’s start with a Chinatown classic. This spot opens at midday every day, and on Fridays and Saturdays, it’s one of the very few places still open when you crawl out of some dark sweaty club in Soho in the small hours of the morning.

For late-night (or early morning) drunk munchies or – you know – a normal dinner, Old Town 97 is comfort eating comprised of Cantonese, Malaysian, and other Southeast Asian dishes. When drunk, go for the LSE fried rice – egg fried rice and fatty pork in an eggy sauce, topped with a fried egg. When sober, I recommend Hainan chicken or roasted duck with rice, the 97 curry laksa, Singapore noodles, and morning glory stir-fried in garlic or spicy shrimp paste.

Wardour Street, W1D | Old Town 97 Instagram

Bun House

I’m always wary when a restaurant offering popular street food goes hard on aesthetics or leans too much into a theme – they tend to be all style and no substance. Bun House, while on trend with its aesthetic, thankfully doesn’t lack substance.

The restaurant offers a variety of the titular buns and Cantonese dishes, but more importantly, it’s one of few places where I can have handmade wontons – just wontons – in a classic clear or hot & sour broth (either way it’s served, I dunk in plenty of chill oil). Let me explain. A disappointing amount of restaurants offer wonton noodle soup – a couple of wontons and a bowl full of noodles, but I grew up eating wonton soup with no noodles, just plenty of wontons; you can understand why I’m pleased with Bun House.

I’ve enjoyed every dish at Bun House, from wontons to crispy tofu with five-spiced sticky sauce, shu mai, pickled cucumbers, grumpy grandma chilli green beans to the Kaya French toast. I’ve never been hoodwinked by Bun House’s shiny visuals, with the comfort eats always hitting the spot.

Lisle Street, WC2H | bun.house

Speedboat Bar

This is another eatery where I’m glad the on-point aesthetics don’t overshadow the menu – this time it’s the popular dishes of Bangkok’s Chinatown brought to London. You really need to book a table at Speedboat Bar – you may get lucky if it’s just two of you arriving at the right time, but it’s like trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

The menu is small, which is almost always a good sign because it means you’re relying on the strength of doing a few things well rather than doing too many things at a mediocre level. I run in the opposite direction from any establishment that claims ‘There’s something for everybody’.

Standouts for me have been whole sea bream, fried fish fillet with shallot, lime, and chilli, the Tam Yam Mama noodles with squid, pork, and prawns, and purple aubergine with chilli and Thai basil. Both the chicken skin and crispy pork need to be washed down with a Leo lager. With a group? Go for the Singha beer tower. You’re welcome.

Rupert Street, W1D | speedboatbar.co.uk

Haidilao Hot Pot

Judge a hot pot restaurant by its sauce station. If it doesn’t have a sauce station, refrain from ordering and make a speedy exit. Let’s get down to brass tacks. I rate the Sichuan spicy soup base – aromatic and lip-tinglingly delicious – for cooking meat, and the three delicacies soup base for tofu and vegetables combined with a generous dollop of sesame oil and spicy dipping sauce. But go for the soup bases that call out to you; trust your gut and all that.

Order all your favourite choice cuts of wafer-thin meats, and seafood, and don’t skimp out on fresh tofu, bean curd, fried tofu, vegetables (must-haves: pak choi, Chinese cabbage, and radish), and rice cakes. Don’t overcook anything, and switch back and forth between cooking a round of meat, seafood, and veggies – don’t overfill the pot at once. It should take you and the gang around two hours to enjoy a good hot pot meal (hot pot is not a solo endeavour).

The pièce de résistance: the sauce station (pictured above). Haidilao helpfully provides recipes for dipping sauces – I’d advise making small amounts and trying them out. Trust your tastebuds; if you want more spice, add it; if you want more sour, go for a little more vinegar. After your second time having hot pot, you should be able to confidently make your sauce. Me? Chilli oil, rice vinegar, and sesame are my friends.

Coventry Street, W1D | UK Haidilao Instagram

Rasa Sayang

My favourite Chinatown hotspot for Malaysian and Singaporean dishes and where I go when I want laksa. The Raffles Singapore Laksa’s spicy and aromatic broth of coconut, shrimp, and asam (tamarind) served with fishcake, prawns, and rice noodles is reason enough to go but you should also order the Hainanese chicken noodle soup.

Other must-haves, in my opinion, are fried mantou (dough crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside), roti canai with chicken curry, the morning glory stir-fried with sambal, crispy sambal fish – you know what? Just eat everything with sambal.

Macclesfield Street, W1D | rasasayangfood.com

Assa

Veering more into Soho than Chinatown, Assa is a no-frills, no-fuss Korean restaurant, and as I’ve already mentioned, a sleek and shiny restaurant ​does not equal great food. Assa offers up Korean comfort classics like tteokbeokki, budae-jjigae, and eomuk guk, and lacking the pocha culture you can find on the streets of Korea, I judge a London Korean restaurant by how well they deliver on these simple but ridiculously delicious dishes (and if they offer complimentary banchan – Korean side dishes – which Assa does).

I love Assa for not shying away from serving a raw egg yolk in dolsot bibimbap and jjigae, both of which are served in piping hot earthenware bowls that cook the egg yolk as soon as you mix it in and keep your dish piping hot until the last bite.

What I order with mates: tteokbeokki, soju, eomuk guk, green onion pajeon, fried mandu, soju, spicy pork, beef ribs, yukgaejang (spicy shredded beef stew), soju, Cass lager, and soju. On my own, I’m partial to dolso bibimbap (with a generous amount of gochujang) or kimchi jjigae.

Romilly Street, W1D | assakorean.com

Golden Dragon

If queuing irritates you, or you are easily overstimulated, then in all honesty, it’s best to avoid not only Golden Dragon but any Chinatown restaurant, especially one that doesn’t take bookings. Expect a menu that will cause existential despair if you’re unfamiliar with dim sum (or just hangry), efficient and dispassionate service, and chaos comprised of people, sounds, and tantalising fragrances and flavours.

My favourite dim sum dishes here include but are certainly not limited to the char sui pork buns, paper wrap prawns, lo mai gai (glutinous rice stuffed with pork & prawns steamed in a lotus leaf) pork dumplings in chilli sauce, and the soup dumplings, accompanied by a ridiculous amount of oolong or pu’erh tea depending on my mood.

Gerrard Street, W1D | gdlondon.co.uk

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