Authentic Chinese food is the thing to eat in London – think roast meat, Shanghai dumplings, hand-pulled noodles and plant-based menus – as diners move beyond takeaway fare

A growing crop of London restaurants have pivoted from serving takeaway sweet and sour pork, chop suey and shrimp toast to offering authentic Chinese fare

A Cantonese chain serves ‘the best roast duck in the world’, a stall sells soup dumplings as good as those in Shanghai, and there are plant-based menus too

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Master Wei’s pork biang biang noodles, liang pi noodles, boneless chicken in ginger sauce. Chinese dishes like these are growing in popularity in London. Photo: Delle Chan

Published: 3:15pm, 18 Nov 2021Updated: 9:07am, 22 Nov 2021

In the UK, Chinese cuisine has had something of a bad reputation until recently, thanks to the ubiquity of dishes such as fluorescent sweet and sour pork, gloopy chop suey and oily shrimp toast.

“In general, Westerners have had a tendency to think of Chinese food as either cheap and unhealthy, or terrifyingly weird,” says Fuchsia Dunlop, a Chinese food expert based in the UK. “But of course, this stereotype is derived from the kind of takeaway food that they love to eat – and that most Chinese don’t.

“This is changing with the rise of China on the international stage, and a new generation of Chinese immigrants in the West who are helping to reshape public opinion through their restaurants and other food ventures.”

This is especially the case in London, which is home to 32 per cent of the UK’s Chinese population and a growing crop of restaurants dishing up authentic Chinese fare. These venues don’t just cater to a few immigrants craving a taste of home, though – some of them rank among the hottest tables in town.

The exterior of Four Seasons in Chinatown, London. Photo: Delle Chan

Cantonese chain Four Seasons – which recently opened two outposts in Hong Kong, one in Tai Po and another in Central – serves what the Financial Times proclaimed is “the best roast duck in the world”, and it seems that many Londoners agree.

Walk into one of its restaurants on any given evening, and you’ll find the space packed with diners tucking into smoky char siu, crisp pork belly and, of course, a platter of succulent roast duck.