London’s Chinese food scene is one of the broadest and deepest in Europe, stretching from the ceremonial gate and neon signage of Chinatown on Gerrard Street to a Xinjiang specialist tucked away south of the river in Camberwell. It takes in a Michelin two-star reinvention of a family’s old Pimlico restaurant, a Bayswater institution that introduced the capital to proper roast duck, and a 500-seat Chinatown canteen that’s been feeding Londoners for decades. Here are the eight best Chinese restaurants in London worth seeking out in 2026.

A. Wong is chef Andrew Wong’s reinvention of Kym’s, the modest Cantonese restaurant his parents ran on the same Wilton Road site for decades. Since taking over in 2012, Wong has turned it into the first and only Chinese restaurant outside Asia to hold two Michelin stars, built around a “Taste of China” tasting menu that draws on regional cooking from across the country’s fourteen international borders rather than sticking to familiar Cantonese staples.

The dim sum lunch menu is the most accessible way in, with signatures like the “999” layered scallop puff with XO oil and a Chengdu street tofu dish that nods to Wong’s years of research trips around China. Evenings lean into the multi-course tasting format, pairing dishes such as wok-seared wagyu beef and pancake wraps with a downstairs cocktail bar, Forbidden City, pouring Sichuan pepper-infused gin.

Please note: A. Wong’s Pimlico dining room is temporarily closed while it’s refreshed, with the team serving their two-Michelin-starred menu at Mandarin Oriental Mayfair until 26 September 2026. The Wilton Road restaurant reopens on 29 September 2026.

A. Wong — 70 Wilton Road, Pimlico, London SW1V 1DE | awong.co.uk

Four Seasons opened on Queensway in 1990 and is widely credited with introducing London to proper Hong Kong-style roast duck — the birds hang in the window and have been drawing queues down the street for over three decades. It’s since grown into a small London chain, but the original Bayswater branch, a couple of minutes from Bayswater station, remains the one Chinese food fans travel across the city for.

Beyond the roast duck, the menu covers the full range of Cantonese roast and stir-fried classics: char siu, salt and pepper squid, and pak choi in garlic sauce are all reliable orders, and the restaurant is well set up for larger groups looking to share plates family-style. It’s a no-frills, canteen-style room — the food, not the décor, is why people keep coming back.

Four Seasons — 84 Queensway, Bayswater, London W2 3RL | fs-restaurants.co.uk

Silk Road is a family-run Xinjiang and Sichuan specialist on Camberwell Church Street that’s been quietly one of the best reasons to eat south of the river for well over a decade. The owners, from Changji in Xinjiang, cook everything themselves, and the menu focuses on the wheat-based, cumin-heavy cooking of China’s north-west frontier rather than the Cantonese dishes found in most London Chinese restaurants.

The “big plate chicken” — a rich, star anise and chilli-laced stew bulked out with hand-pulled noodles dropped in towards the end of the meal — is the dish regulars build their order around, alongside grilled lamb shish, cumin-dusted chicken gizzards, and a black vinegar and chilli cabbage that turns up in nearly every review of the place. It’s a simple, functional dining room, and a meal for two rarely runs much past £20 a head.

Silk Road — 49 Camberwell Church Street, Camberwell, London SE5 8TR | Book via OpenTable

Just off Brick Lane on Hanbury Street, Sichuan Folk has built a loyal following for cooking that leans into the flavours of Sichuan province rather than just its heat — though there’s plenty of that too, in dishes like the “husband and wife” beef offal slices, named after a couple who once sold the dish from a Chengdu food stall in the 1930s. The restaurant’s hotpot is a particular draw for groups, served with rich, customisable broths and a picture-led menu that makes it easy for newcomers to order with confidence.

The fish-fragrant seabass, finished with a hot Sichuan pepper oil, and the restaurant’s dan dan noodles are the two dishes most likely to appear on a first-timer’s table, alongside a lunch set menu that makes it a solid option for a quicker, still-authentic Sichuan fix during the week.

Sichuan Folk — 32 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields, London E1 6QR | sichuan-folk.co.uk

Golden Phoenix is a family-run Cantonese restaurant on Gerrard Street that’s earned a reputation as one of the best dim sum spots in Chinatown since opening in 2014, with Time Out naming it among London’s top five for dim sum. Every dumpling, roast, and dish is handmade from scratch by chefs with over thirty years of experience, and the restaurant also runs one of the most extensive gluten-free Chinese menus in London — a menu built, in part, around the owner’s young son, who has coeliac disease.

With over 250 seats across three floors and seven private party rooms, Golden Phoenix is as well set up for a wedding or a corporate booking as it is for a quiet solo dim sum lunch. The roast duck, finished with extra-crisp, oily skin, and the salted egg custard lava buns are two of the most-recommended dishes on a menu that runs from classic dim sum through to more elaborate seafood and roast meat plates.

Golden Phoenix — 37–38 Gerrard Street, Chinatown, London W1D 5QB | goldenphoenixchinatown.co.uk

Tucked just off the main run of Gerrard Street on Newport Court, Baozi Inn was one of the first Chinatown restaurants to properly champion northern Chinese street food over the Cantonese dishes that dominate the area, and it remains one of the best-value ways to eat well in the neighbourhood. The room leans into kitsch, propaganda-poster décor, but the kitchen is serious about its Chengdu and Sichuan cooking.

The Chengdu jiaozi dumplings, dressed in a punchy XO sauce, and the dan dan noodles — a tangle of noodles in a soy, sesame, and peanut sauce topped with minced pork — are the dishes most people come back for, alongside a proper spicy beef noodle soup that arrives with a slick of tongue-numbing chilli oil on top. Steamed baozi buns, from £1.20 each, make it one of the cheapest genuinely good meals in central London.

Baozi Inn — 25–26 Newport Court, Chinatown, London WC2H 7JS | baoziinn-ct.com

Wong Kei has been a Chinatown institution for decades, and with seating for around 500 people across several floors of a Wardour Street building, it’s one of the largest Chinese restaurants in the country. It was once notorious as “the rudest restaurant in London,” with staff barking diners upstairs or downstairs depending on where a table was free — a reputation the restaurant shed after a change of ownership and refurbishment in 2014, though the fast, no-nonsense service remains part of the experience.

The beef brisket and rice vermicelli in soup is the dish most regulars point new visitors towards, alongside stuffed bean curd, roast duck, and char siu — all generously portioned and priced with most mains sitting around £10. Free jasmine tea, quick turnaround, and shared tables at the front make it as good a solo dinner as it is a stop before a night out in Soho.

Wong Kei — 41–43 Wardour Street, Chinatown, London W1D 6PY | wongkeilondon.com

South of the river and a short walk from Elephant & Castle station, Dragon Castle has been a fixture of the local Cantonese scene for well over a decade, known for serving some of the freshest dim sum south of the Thames. Almost fifty dim sum dishes are handcrafted on-site by chefs who specialise in little else, served daily from noon until 5pm alongside a full à la carte menu of Cantonese classics and monthly chef’s specials.

Sizzling fillet beef in a sweet Mandarin sauce and a seafood claypot layered with tofu, king prawns, squid, and scallops are among the standout mains, while the deep-fried custard buns and cheese-and-prawn rolls are recurring favourites on the dim sum side. Two private function rooms make it a popular choice for family celebrations and larger group bookings.

Dragon Castle — 100 Walworth Road, Elephant & Castle, London SE17 1JL | dragoncastle.uk