Dine like a local: chef Andrew Wong’s guide to London’s best Chinese restaurants

In 2021, chef Andrew Wong’s A. Wong restaurant in Pimlico was the first Chinese restaurant outside Asia to be awarded two Michelin stars. Known for his exquisite takes on dim sum and regional Chinese cooking at the restaurant, when outside of it, Wong has a few favourite spots that he returns to repeatedly and is a big fan of family-run restaurants, a tradition which he says is dying out. This is Andrew Wong’s guide to London’s best Chinese restaurants.

Reindeer Café

I think their roast meat is the best in London, and it's just a relaxed kind of cafeteria vibe. It's nothing fancy, just really delicious food. We hear guests all the time, talking about [how] the Chinese food in the UK isn't as good as the food in Hong Kong. Reindeer Café comes pretty damn close.

Unit 2, Wing Yip Business Centre, 395 Edgware Rd, NW2 6LN

New Loon Fung 

I go to New Loon Fung in Chinatown more than anywhere. In an area packed with Chinese restaurants, I'm pretty sure this restaurant is the only one left where the owner is from the original generation of Hong Kong migrants that came to the UK in the 1970s as trained Cantonese chefs, who went on to open restaurants in London. The dim sum selection that they serve has all the staples – from har gau to siu mai to chicken feet, sponge ma lai cake to char siu buns. It’s as reminiscent as you can get to going to Hong Kong and going to the really old-school dim sum places. 

1/F-4/F, 42-43 Gerrard St, W1D 5QG

Din Tai Fung

Because I work in the industry, I understand how hard it is to make good Shanghai dumplings, let alone make good Shanghai dumplings on the scale [of Din Tai Fung]. I like the one in Selfridges, the team are familiar faces, I've got to know them. Really amazing service, very professional, very friendly. My kids love it.

Selfridges, Level 4, 400 Oxford St, W1A 1AB

Chinatown Bakery

Chinatown Bakery manages to somehow make buns so light, it's like eating soufflé or air. We live in a gastronomic environment now, where everyone's banging on about sourdough all the time. But there's something about this bread, which is just so light and the complete antithesis. All the buns are based on a similar recipe, but they have various different fillings, from their coconut bun, which has coconut cream inside, to their egg custard bun, to their pandan cakes, to what are called coconut swirls. 

7-9 Newport Pl, WC2H 7JR

Maxim

Maxim, in Ealing, is a very traditional mixture of Cantonese and Pekingese cuisines. I'm a big sucker for family-run restaurants where you can feel it – the atmosphere is tangible and you can feel that the food comes from a family-run restaurant. Originally run by a mother and son, the mother, sadly, is no longer with us, but the food still is delicious. Guoba is basically a puffed rice dish, where they pour either hot and sour sauce over the top, or a chicken gravy mixture and you listen to the rice sizzle. I think it's wonderful. I love their salt and pepper frog's legs, their crispy beef. 

Silk Road

I like the skewers [at Silk Road]. I also love basically like a lamb soup – I like it because it's so brave to put it on the menu. [They] chuck the entire load of lamb bone and whole lamb leg chunks, which they've been boiling with the soup, onto the plate with loads of sliced onion on it. It's the way that I remember having soup in my household growing up by my grandma. It's the way it should be. Soup shouldn't always be triple clarified, putting egg whites through it to make it crystal clear. Sometimes a soup should be hearty, you should have chunks of meat and bone in there. You just take the bone out, suck out the marrow. You drink the rest of the soup. It touches on a cuisine which really still to this day in the UK is not particularly well represented.

47 Camberwell Church St, SE5 8TR

Park Chinois

I really like the dim sum at Park Chinois. People always talk about the decor in there, the opulence of it and forget about the food. There are some really creative dishes and it's all done really well using exceptional ingredients. 

17 Berkeley St, W1J 8EA