Good morning and welcome back to the Vittles Chinatowns Project. Due to a glitch, yesterday’s newsletter was sent to only some subscribers. As a result, we are re-sending it today, with apologies to those of you who receive it twice as a result.

The piece, by Barclay Bram, looks at how the recent influx of Chinese international students is producing new…

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Chinatowns have always been a part of my life in one way or another. When my parents emigrated from Hong Kong and China to the UK in the 1980s, they bounced between Chinatowns, Chinese restaurants and takeaways, going wherever the work took them. They usually lived above the businesses or in staff accommodation until they saved e…

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Good morning, and welcome to the Vittles Chinatowns Project. In this essay, Xiao Ma explores how London’s Chinatown has evolved over the years and its continued resonance and importance for various communities despite rebranding, gentrification and commodification.

You can read the rest of the project here:

The New Chinatowns, by Barclay Bram
Crying in Win…

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Welcome back to the Vittles Chinatowns Project! In today’s newsletter, Crying in Wing Yip, we have asked eight of our favourite chefs, restaurateurs and writers to reflect on the significance of Asian supermarkets, and how they allow East and South East Asian people to connect to their heritage.

You can read the rest of the project here:

Who is Chinatown …

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Welcome back to the Vittles Chinatowns Project. Here is our comprehensive and extensive guide to Chinatowns and Chinese restaurants across the UK.

In this list, you will find guides to Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, and Sheffield. We have published the longer guides as standalone pieces, for which you will find links in the newsletter.

At the end of this post, you’ll also find our subscriber-only map featuring all 168 restaurants that we recommend across all the guides.

You can read the rest of the project here:

Who is Chinatown for?, by Xiao Ma
The New Chinatowns, by Barclay Bram
Crying in Wing Yip, by various
The Vittles Guide to London’s Chinatowns, by various

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Birmingham

Lap-fai Lee

Birmingham’s Chinatown is not a tourist destination like the London equivalent. It is a living Chinatown; our businesses primarily cater to the local Chinese community. Growing up, we would go to Hor Tung for dim sum, but below the restaurant was a Chinese shop that seemed to sell everything, including copies of Hong Kong shows on VHS for rent. When the old Bull Ring was demolished, the Chinese community shifted its focus to The Arcadian, Hurst Street and Ladywell Walk, and more restaurants, Hong Kong-style bakeries, Cantonese BBQ joints and noodle shops started to open. When Chinese students arrived in the 2000s to study at Birmingham’s three universities, mainland Chinese flavours arrived with them.

With the recent influx of Hong Kong immigrants, the pendulum has swung back. The cha chaan teng diners are now in, bringing back that nostalgic colonial comfort food to dear old Blighty. With all the redevelopment in Southside – the district’s recent nomenclature – the area is now buzzing with activity and opportunity. Yet despite the changes, Chinatown continues to reflect the Birmingham spirit; it’s quiet and industrious, always self-deprecating. All you have to do is come with an open mind.

Read Lap-fai’s full guide to Birmingham’s Chinatown here.

Bristol

Meg Houghton-Gilmour

Authentic Hot Pot and Hand-Pulled Noodles Sichuan

At Authentic Hot Pot, expert hands trained in the Chengdu style of pulling noodles twist, lift and pull thick braids of dough, each one slightly off-kilter, to be quickly transported across the room and dumped into your hot pot. It’s the only place in Bristol where the noodles are hand-pulled – which can be a rarity even in the UK’s bigger Chinatowns – and the result is an irresistible signature chew. Paired with the addictive tingle of Sichuan peppercorns, it’s a masterpiece of mouthfeel. A meal here is an all-you-can-eat, choose-your-own-adventure-affair; you can populate your hot pot with anything from slices of spam to wobbling, collagen-rich pig’s trotters. The setting is conference-room chic, brightly lit and lined with help-yourself drinks fridges. The website doesn’t work and attempting to book often proves futile, but it’s large and relatively undiscovered, so persistence is rewarded.

Thomas Lane, Redcliffe, BS1 6JG

Nice Spice Cantonese/siu mei

Neatly tucked behind Bristol Hippodrome, Nice Spice is not particularly spicy, but there’s a queue outside every day, loyal disciples of Bristol’s most succulent Cantonese roast meats waiting for their generous fix of shattering pork skin, as they have been doing for more than a decade. Inside, cleavers quarter bronzed ducks that have been hanging in the window, as hungry Chinese students and lunchtime crowds watch on from a handful of small, undecorated tables. Nice Spice does offer other dishes, but a trip here is really always about these superlative, affordable, consistently perfect roast meats. Come hungry and bring cash.

24 Denmark St, BS1 5DQ

Wangs Miscellaneous

Squeeze past tables buckling under the weight of Sichuan margaritas and plates of soy-braised chicken and you’ll see Emily Xin Xin Chan, Wangs’ head chef, tucked in the tiny kitchen, deep in concentration, pumping out inventive dishes. Owners Sandy and Sacha met in Hong Kong queuing for street food, then returned to Bristol to turn a former fruit and veg shop into their dream restaurant. They lured Chan, who grew up in her parents’ takeaway, back to Chinese cooking after a spell in fine dining, with the promise of doing things differently. The menu reads as a mission to redefine regional Chinese food in the UK, complete with house-made XO sauce, Xinjiang lamb cooked over fire and an unbeatable pan-fried turnip cake. A recent, successful crowdfunding campaign paid for a traditional Cantonese charcoal roasting oven from China, so watch this space as they expand the garden terrace and menu.

66 Bath Buildings, Montpelier, BS6 5PU

Cambridge

CP – Cici Peng. EML – Edward Moon Little. SQ – Siqi Chong.

According to the 2021 Census, Cambridgeshire has the highest proportional population of ethnic Chinese residents in the UK. While Cambridge’s Chinese migration history parallels London’s in some ways, its food scene has largely sidestepped the recent patterns that have swept through the capital’s dining scene: there are barely any Sichuan concepts or biang biang noodle joints, and new restaurant openings are rare due to a high concentration of university-owned buildings, expensive commercial rents and students opting for the sanctuary of college dining halls. Instead, Cambridge offers peripheral regional cuisines that, in some cases, arrived here before reaching London, and I maintain that the best xiao long baos in the UK can be found in the city.

With no centralised Chinatown, the city’s Chinese restaurants can instead be found in dispersed culinary pockets – in residential neighbourhoods, bubbled together along the peripheries of the local shopping centre or along the bustling Mill Road, which houses most of the city’s best independent food shops. CP

Read the Vittles Guide to Chinese Restaurants in Cambridge here.

Edinburgh

SY – Steven Young. SK – Sean Wai Keung.

Noodles Home Lanzhou

Often, the status of ‘favourite restaurant’ conveys something quite specific: reliability, the comfort taken in knowing exactly what you’re going to order and what you’re going to get. Noodles Home, which specialises in Lanzhou and Sichuanese noodles, is not that. Its gift is being consistent in its inconsistency: that the same dish at different times, or even ordered by multiple people on the same occasion, will take wildly different forms. Take my go-to, the Chongqing spicy noodles with pork mince. You can go 20 times (and, categorically, I have) and never know the broth-to-noodle ratio, the spice level, or how your choice of protein will be prepared and presented. But never being the same twice, often not even close, just means the kitchen has found multiple paths to paradise. SY

14a Nicolson St, EH8 9DH

Five Dumplings Dongbei/jiaozi

The loss of Silver Bowl, Edinburgh’s longest standing Chinese takeaway, was a blow to the city’s cultural heritage and a tough act to follow. Enter Five Dumplings. The dishes that give the new occupier of 311 Leith Walk its name are solid, but the treasure on the menu is buried elsewhere. Take its potato and aubergine mixed with peppers: an unexciting moniker for di san xian (three heavenly treasures), a Dongbei dish that harmonises the sweet, salty, sour and pungent at once. Those wanting something similarly well balanced, but with more umami and heat, should go for the dry wok beef tripe with chilli. It’s a take on offal so well judged that it finally put the haunting memories of my grandpa’s take (unseasoned, boiled for an hour by a tetchy Scottish nonagenarian) to rest. SY

311 Leith Walk, EH6 8SA (also Wheatfield St and Newhaven)

Noodles & Dumplings Sichuan

During a long month working every day at the Fringe, Noodles &Dumplings quickly became my happy place. Freshly hand-pulled noodles and hand-wrapped dumplings are rarely bad, but what makes this place stand out are its accompanying dishes. The cold plate mixed salad is beautifully seasoned and not too oily, while the skewers are moreish and not too salty. It also offers Chengdu-style hot pots that are great to share on a cold day, and the garlic broth delivers on its flavourful promise, all of which makes this place one of my favourite restaurants in the city. SK

23 South Clerk St, EH8 9JD

Glasgow

Sean Wai Keung

The first recorded Chinese restaurant in Glasgow, Wah Yen, opened on the Govan Road in 1948. As the more traditional shipbuilding industries, which had previously attracted Chinese migrants to the city, declined through the 1950s and 1960s, the number of food-focused places only grew. While Wah Yen didn’t survive, the Glasgow Chinatown complex opened its doors in 1992. It featured 15 indoor units, a large restaurant and a traditional gate. It was in the Cowcaddens area to the north of the city, and was both a means of promoting Chinese businesses to those outside the community and a home for organisation and solidarity, working with other organisations such as Wing Hong Elderly Group to provide information on issues like housing and visas.

Unfortunately the complex itself has been in steady decline over the last decade, with a range of factors, including the pandemic, to blame. Despite this, Cowcaddens itself is still a major hub for Chinese businesses in the city, while over in the West End a new kind of ‘Chinatown’ is blossoming, with its restaurants catering more towards the growing Chinese student population at Glasgow University. This combination of newer restaurants alongside more long-established ones, as well as a few surprises in unexpected places, has ensured Glasgow’s continued position as one of Scotland’s best cities for Chinese food.

Read Sean’s full guide to Glasgow’s best Chinese restaurants here.

Liverpool

EB – Emily Beswick. JN – Jonathan Nunn. BP – Beatrice Png. HLL – Hai Lin Leung. RCJ ­– Ruth Cheung Judge. IR – Isaac Rangaswami. SMN – Sufea Mohamad Noor. LT – Lisa Tse. HT – Helen Tse.

Liverpool is home to Europe’s oldest Chinese community. Its Chinatown, near the docks, served the Chinese seafarers (as well as those from the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore) who have passed through and settled in the city since the 1880s. With the arrival of postwar migrants from Hong Kong, Chinese food then expanded via takeaways, which popped up in the suburbs and on the Wirral. Chinese families took over chip shops, fusing English comfort food with Chinese flavours to create the city’s signature salt and pepper everything – chips, ribs and siu mai.

The installation of Chinatown’s enormous arch in 2000, a gift from Liverpool’s twin city, Shanghai, heralded a new era of international students from mainland China to the city. Mini-Chinatowns sprung up to supply these contemporary sojourners, including Myrtle Street’s row of grocery shops and cafes and a cluster of hot pot restaurants on London Road. However, Liverpool’s historical Chinatown on Nelson Street is quiet for most of the year, coming alive only during Lunar New Year celebrations. Recent efforts have tried to bring the area back to life, including the trial of a new street market. But maybe Liverpool’s Chinatown hints at the future of Chinatowns in the UK: a mix of old-school dim sum parlours, flourishing takeaways and new Malaysian and Vietnamese spots, unconfined to a single street. EB

Read the full Vittles guide to Liverpool’s Chinatown here.

London

JN – Jonathan Nunn. AH – Angela Hui. EZ – Elaine Zhao. SC – Siqi Chong. GC – Guan Chua. ZS – Zoe Suen. FD – Fuchsia Dunlop. BB – Barclay Bram. DB – Dan Biddulph. IR – Isaac Rangaswami. MAC – Montague Ashley-Craig. AW – Anto Wu. FL – @foodinlondon. LT – Liz Tray.

The concept of Chinatown as we commonly understand it emerged from a very specific set of circumstances at the turn of the 20th century, when Cantonese sailors with meagre resources were forced to make creative use of limited space in their new cities. In London, this began at the docks in Limehouse and moved to Soho in the 1960s, when migrants from Hong Kong and the New Territories took on cheap leases in what was then considered an undesirable part of the city. Many had been displaced by wartime bombing and rebuilt their businesses around a tight cluster of streets between Leicester Square and Soho. Alongside restaurants sat Chinese supermarkets, traditional Chinese medicine clinics, massage parlours, video stores, cinemas and a handful of betting shops tucked into side corners, all part of the same compact ecosystem.

That era of Chinatown is over. The Soho Chinatown – the place that most Londoners would think of when they hear the word ‘Chinatown’ – is no longer the only centre of Chinese culture in the city. New types of Chinatowns are flourishing across the city, in places where Chinese people actually live. What this means is that there has never been another time in London’s history when you can eat better and more widely across China’s rich diversity of regional cuisines. For the first time ever, across more than 80 restaurants and 15 distinct cuisines, we have compiled a guide on where to eat them, in London’s six (and counting) Chinatowns.

Read more about London’s historic and new Chinatowns and a Vittles guide to their restaurants here.

Manchester

Lisa and Helen Tse

Manchester’s Chinatown is compact – just half a square mile bounded by Moseley, Charlotte, Princess and Portland Streets, with the grand Imperial Chinese arch at its heart, a gift from China and a reminder of the old Sino-British textile trade that built this city. The food has shifted over the years: what was once solidly Cantonese now runs hot with Sichuan peppercorns and the vinegary punch of northern noodle joints. Stalwarts like Kwok Man and Hong Kong have closed, but things are shifting back as new waves of Hong Kong immigrants arrive, bringing with them the sweet-savoury char siu and the crackle of roast pork belly. Old Chinese acupuncture clinics sit beside new Taiwanese bubble tea stalls; herbalists who’ve been grinding the same remedies for forty years share a wall with hot-pot joints where university students queue for numbing broth.

During the pandemic, Manchester became home to the UK’s largest Chinese population, accounting for 3.4% of the national total. The rents may be brutal, and the economic headwinds real, but the community holds. This is not a Chinatown that performs for tourists. It just cooks, day after day, better than it has any right to. If you come hungry, you’ll eat things you’ve never heard of, cooked by people who’ve been doing it longer than you’ve been alive, and it will absolutely ruin you for anywhere else.

Read Lisa and Helen’s full guide to Manchester’s Chinatown here.

Newcastle

LP – Leah Pattem. EK ­– Eve Kossman.

Pop Up Wok HQ 爆大鑊 Hong Kong

Lucia Tsoi and Molly Chan are not chefs by training; they just cook the way they always did in Hong Kong, their home until 2014, when they both moved to Newcastle as students. As a result, the food at Pop Up Wok isn’t traditional Hong Kong cuisine in the rigid sense. Instead, it celebrates the movement of Hongkongers and the cultures they’ve consumed over centuries – think Satay beef noodles with peanut butter French toast. It’s food that flips the script on culinary migration, and it’s all the better for it. LP

16 Saville Row, NE1 8JE

Sky Chinese Cantonese

Ascending in the lift from the bustling Stowell Street to Sky Chinese Cuisine is one of the great pleasures of visiting Newcastle, whether you’re looking for traditional pork and cashew dumplings, crispy mooli cake, fluffy siu mai or Anglo-Chinese classics. Be sure to order the trio of roast meats over rice and pair it with the extremely moreish cheung fun (note: both are only served until 5pm). EK

20 Stowell St, NE1 4XQ

Breadpoint Cantonese/bakery

It’s likely that you’ll smell Breadpoint before you see it. The aromas from this long-running Hong Kong bakery, which pumps out freshly baked Cantonese-style breads, buns, cakes and pastries, will draw you in like a cartoon scent trail. Beyond the cutesy font and red interiors, there’s a classic pick-and-mix tray setup, where you can load up on sausage buns, pineapple buns and the more unusual bear-shaped ones. A personal favourite is the seaweed and custard bun: it has the ideal ratio of sweet to salty. EK

13 Low Friar St, NE1 5UE

Oxford

Harin Turrell

Tse Noodle Cantonese/Malaysian

Since it opened in 2019, Tse Noodle has become a firm favourite among the student community for its central location, speedy service and reasonable prices. Come for the noodle soups – particularly the scallion oil chicken, although the aromatic beef and prawn wonton are equally strong contenders. Expect springy noodles, chicken skin so crisp it’s still sizzling, and the pure comfort of sesame and scallion-steeped broth when you inevitably lift the bowl to lap up the last traces. The eponymous Mr Tse is now more likely to be found at his follow-up restaurant, Qin, which has an almost identical menu but at slightly hiked prices, justified by the addition of tenderstem broccoli and a greater likelihood of finding a table (it’s a bit outside the centre of town). But the original site has a je ne sais quoi that always draws me back; maybe it’s the steam that swallows you, or the squeeze of getting to your seat. Get choosing quickly, because there’s a queue behind you, and don’t forget to dash to Natwest before the food arrives, it’s cash only. HT

8 Ship St, OX1 3DA

Café Orient (Zhang Ji) Sichuan/Dongbei

Cowley, in the south of Oxford, has at least seven restaurants that serve Chinese food. Café Orient, the first you encounter if you are coming from the city centre, conveniently happens to be the best of the bunch. Don’t be fooled by its generic name (which is different online anyway: Zhang Ji). For a simple solo dine, the yo po mian, bouncy hand-stretched noodles slicked with punchy housemade chilli oil, does not disappoint – the ratio of grease, spice, acid and texture is done satisfyingly right. If you are in a rice kind of mood, the pairing of jiggly, pepper-heavy mapo tofu and charred, dry-fried green beans never goes amiss, either. Better yet, bring company and you could try it all. HT

170 Cowley Rd, OX4 1UE

Fusion House Cantonese/Sichuan/Dongbei

Fusion House looks like an unassuming takeaway at first glance, but up its narrow staircase, you will find a serene restaurant space. I can’t suggest much apart from the dry hot pot, because I seldom stray from this near-perfect dish. The contents of the pot can be personalised, but some ingredients wear Fusion House’s fiery, addictive and, frankly, unmatched, mala coat particularly well, such as the fatty curls of thinly sliced beef, the crumbly bites of cauliflower and the knuckly crunch of wood ear mushrooms (‘edible tree fungus’ on the menu). These are my personal favourites, but I encourage experimentation and an open mind. If you’re looking for variety, the fried thin sheets of bean curd with padron peppers and guo bao ruo (double fried pork tossed in a sweet and sour dressing) are also worth your attention. And if you are served by the lady with the bob (her name is Elsa), be nice to her: she might give you candied winter melon. HT

126 Cowley Road, OX41JE

Sheffield

Kerre Chen

Sheffield’s food and drink scene has quietly flourished over the past decade, shaped in no small part by its large East Asian community. The city now has a strong roster of excellent Chinese restaurants, many of them long-standing, well-loved and fiercely reliable. I’m Chinese myself, and as a Sheffield-based food blogger, I’ve spent years eating my way across the city. While newer developments like New Era Square – often described as Sheffield’s Chinatown – have brought renewed visibility to the scene, the places worth travelling for are spread far wider. This list brings together the places I return to time and time again.

A Journey to Chengdu Sichuan

Tucked inside New Era Square, Sheffield’s answer to a modern Chinatown, A Journey to Chengdu cooks the food of Sichuan with unflinching confidence. The mapo tofu is silken and volcanic, its surface shimmering with crimson oil. The deep-fried pork arrives dusted in tongue-tingling peppercorns and crackles in the most satisfying way. The braised pig trotters are glossy, gelatinous and far better than they are ever given credit for. You can also build your own traditional maocai, choosing from vegetables, meats and seafood before everything is steeped in a bubbling, spicy broth. The space is contemporary, with huge windows and sleek panels, but the flavours remain resolutely traditional. It’s one of the best examples of how New Era Square combines modern dining with cultural roots.

Unit 9, 9 New Era Square, Highfield, S2 4RB

Chinatown Restaurant Cantonese/dim sum

A cornerstone of Sheffield’s Chinese dining scene, Chinatown Restaurant is where families gather for weekend dim sum and gossip over pots of puerh tea. Steaming baskets fill the tables with silky cheung fun folded around prawns, XO-fried radish cake with crisp edges and molten salted egg custard buns that ooze gold. Don’t skip the three roasties: glossy char siu, lacquered roast duck and shatter-crisp pork belly. Regulars are recognised on sight, and the chatter of Sheffield’s Chinese community fills the air like background music. The venue is equally known for its traditional wedding banquets: dish after dish lands on the table like milestones in a long celebration, including whole suckling pig, lobster, abalone and mock shark fin soup.

27 London Rd, Highfield, S2 4LA

Noodle Plus Lanzhou/Shaanxi

At Noodle Plus, the draw is right there in the name, and in the window. Watch as the noodle master effortlessly stretches and slaps dough into long, elastic ribbons, a hypnotic ritual of skill and strength that never fails to gather onlookers. He’s bounced around several noodle joints across the city, but wherever he goes, the masses follow. Choose from Lanzhou hand-pulled noodles with plenty of bite and bounce, Shaanxi knife-cut noodles or biang biang belt noodles, which are then plunged into broth and served steaming. The braised beef brisket is the local favourite, rich in five-spice and soy, generous in portion and layered with warmth. Affordable, filling and utterly satisfying, this is no-frills comfort food elevated by craft and best enjoyed with lashings of chilli oil.

255 Glossop Rd, Broomhall, S10 2GZ

Wah Lok Yuen Hong Kong

Wah Lok Yuen brings the cha chaan teng experience to Sheffield. For those who have spent a decent amount of time in Hong Kong, it’s a hit of instant nostalgia: bright colours, plastic stools, laminated menus and glass display cabinets stacked with pastries, all of which echo the diners many Hongkongers grew up visiting. Plates of scrambled eggs with buttered toast and satay beef noodles arrive fast and the Hong Kong milk tea, brewed the traditional silk-stocking way and served in those famed cups, is perfectly balanced – strong, tannic, and smooth. Its silky soft rice noodle rolls are a standout. Made from scratch, they’re dressed the old-school way with soy, sesame and chilli sauce. The egg tarts are just as good, with a buttery shortcrust base and a gentle wobbling custard centre that’s best eaten warm if you’re lucky enough to catch them fresh out of the oven.

132 Infirmary Rd, S6 3DH

Golden Dragon Restaurant Hakka

Golden Dragon opened in the last year, taking over from a sushi restaurant, and, unusually, specialises in traditional Hakka cuisine, which is rare to find anywhere in the UK. Chef Ben, who comes from Hong Kong, uses no MSG – instead long braises coax depth from tougher cuts of meat, layered aromatics come from fermented beans and preserved vegetables, and cooking techniques build flavour over hours. Each dish is shaped by patience and memory, and some orders require advance notice – a mark of their care. The slow-braised old duck is deeply savoury, the stewed herbal chicken with yellow wine soothing and nourishing, while the pickled mustard greens bring a sharp, tangy counterpoint, balancing out the richness of everything else.

6 Sheldon Rd, Nether Edge, S7 1GW

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Welcome back to the Vittles Chinatowns Project. Today’s newsletter is the largest guide ever written for the London Chinatowns. It covers six ‘Chinatowns’ serving six different communities: the historical London Chinatowns of Soho and Queensway, as well as the new styles of Chinatown emerging in Bloomsbury, Spitalfields, Colindale–Hendon and the Docklands. As this is a long post, we recommend reading it in full via our website here.

You can read the rest of the project here:

Who is Chinatown for?, by Xiao Ma
The New Chinatowns, by Barclay Bram
Crying in Wing Yip, by various
The Vittles Guide to the UK’s Chinatowns (including individual guides to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Cambridge and Glasgow), by various

The concept of Chinatown as we commonly understand it emerged from a very specific set of circumstances at the turn of the twentieth century, when Cantonese sailors with meagre resources were forced to make creative use of limited space in their new cities. In London, this began at the docks in Limehouse and moved to Soho in the 1960s, when migrants from Hong Kong and the New Territories took on cheap leases in what was then considered an undesirable part of the city. Many had been displaced by wartime bombing and rebuilt their businesses around a tight cluster of streets between Leicester Square and Soho. Alongside restaurants sat Chinese supermarkets, traditional Chinese medicine clinics, massage parlours, video stores, cinemas and a handful of betting shops tucked into side corners, all part of the same compact ecosystem.

That era of Chinatown is over. The Soho Chinatown – the place that most Londoners would think of when they hear the word ‘Chinatown’ – is no longer the only centre of Chinese culture in the city. New types of Chinatowns are flourishing across the city, in places where Chinese people actually live. To the historical Chinatowns of Soho and Queensway, you can add the conurbations from Bloomsbury to King’s Cross, and from Spitalfields to Aldgate, that have been utterly transformed by the university and housing markets, and which cater to a new demographic of students. In Colindale and Hendon you will find a satellite Chinatown catering to second-generation Cantonese families and new arrivals from Hong Kong on BNO passports. And in the Docklands, on the site of the first Chinatown, you will find a sprawling, unplanned ecosystem of gigantic dim sum parlours and regional Chinese restaurants, making use of the area’s unique topography.

What this means is that there has never been another time in London’s history when you can eat better and more widely across China’s rich diversity of regional cuisines. For the first time ever, across more than eighty restaurants and fifteen distinct cuisines, we have compiled a guide on where to eat them, in London’s six (and counting) Chinatowns.

Contributors

JN – Jonathan Nunn. AH – Angela Hui. EZ – Elaine Zhao. SC – Siqi Chong. GC – Guan Chua. ZS – Zoe Suen. FD – Fuchsia Dunlop. BB – Barclay Bram. DB – Dan Biddulph. IR – Isaac Rangaswami. MAC – Montague Ashley-Craig. AW – Anto Wu. FL – @foodinlondon. LT – Liz Tray.

Soho Chinatown

While Chinatown was once primarily a place for the Chinese community, today it is a mirror of central London itself – a mix of cultures, cuisines and generations, constantly shifting, full of energy and impermanence. The neighbourhood is almost unrecognisable from what it was even ten years ago; restaurants change hands fast and often without much fanfare, pushed out by rising rents. In recent years, Brexit and Covid-related staff shortages, have led to a shrinking pool of skilled wok and dim sum chefs, while changing tastes and demographics have altered the type of restaurant that opens here. What was once a stronghold of Cantonese roast meats and dim sum banquet halls has evolved into a pan-Asian bubble tea slurping, jiggly soufflé pancake queuing and custard taiyaki snacking TikTok town.

Still, Soho’s Chinatown remains one of the great central London neighbourhoods for eating out. Everyone – theatregoers, tourists, late night revellers – passes through it, which means each restaurant fulfils a function. It contains everything from tiny street food stalls selling oyster cakes and jianbing, to Haidilao, the gigantic Chinese hot pot chain that approximates a Harvester if it was directed by Zhang Yimou. And in its longstanding institutions – Wong Kei, New Loon Fung, Lido, anywhere that owns its freehold – Chinatown has its unwavering anchors, there through it all, even as everything changes around them.

Old Town 97 Cantonese

Chinatown used to be a village of nighthawks but it’s only Old Town left that still caters for the outcasts, late-night revellers and post-shift chefs. The best food here has the tenor of a great midnight snack: ho fun in slippery egg sauce, equal parts charred and gloopy; salted egg yolk chicken wings; seafood fried ‘fragrant and spicy 香辣’ (translated on the menu as ‘spicy golden leaf’) that leaves your lips buzzing with lemongrass and sambal. Old Town is infamous for its absurd off-menu dishes for students with iron stomachs. ‘LSE rice’ is egg to the power of three: pork belly in honey and pepper egg sauce, egg fried rice and a fried egg on top, although I prefer the Ah Ming fried rice, with crispy pork and fried balls of tofu. JN

19 Wardour St, W1D 6PL

Cafe TPT Cantonese

Cafe TPT is a template for how all Cantonese restaurants in London can and should be – competent at everything and exceptional at a select few standouts. There’s the creamy beef flank curry that reduces down in its stone pot, the blistered, caramelised green beans and the soft shell crab stir-fried typhoon shelter-style with chilli and curry leaves, but also, ingeniously, with cornflakes. Or the pork chop Macau-style with onions and cheesy béchamel – a chaise longue of a comfort dish, best eaten in the late hours to soak up a Soho night. I cannot be objective about this place. The most meaningful relationship of my adult life is the one I have with the laoban, who, in fifteen years, has acknowledged that I’m a regular on exactly two occasions. JN

21 Wardour St, W1D 6PN

C&R Cafe Malaysian/Cantonese

Located down a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it alley off Rupert Street, C&R Café is one of Chinatown’s worst-kept secrets and rightly so. This Malaysian joint has been dishing out comfort food since the late nineties, with its laksa the star of the show: a fiery, coconut-rich broth packed with prawns, tofu puffs, fish balls and slippery vermicelli noodles. Stir-frying here is a strength: the C&R wat tan hor is among the best in London, but even better is the chai tow kwai (radish and rice cakes) with each of their six cube faces blackened from the wok, plus a heap of beansprouts and tiny umami-jolts of preserved radish. Pro tip: if you sit close to the back you can steal Speedboat Bar’s wi-fi. AH + JN

4–5 Rupert Court, W1D 6DY

Lotus Garden Cantonese/dim sum

I often used to come to Lotus Garden specifically for siu yuk on rice, which I marginally prefer to its rivals in Chinatown on taste and price. That is, until last year, when I bumped into Super 8’s Songsoo Kim, who recommended I get the prawn and chive dumplings, plus a deep cut from the cheung fun menu: a crispy bean curd roll stuffed with sesame and prawn cake. Since then, I’ve never deviated from this order. I’ve never seen the cheung fun anywhere else exactly as it is here: a textural riot from the addition of toasted sesame. It’s one of the best single items in the whole of Chinatown. JN

15a Gerrard St, W1D 6JD

Wong Kei Cantonese

Opened in 1972, this cash-only Cantonese canteen is the stuff of legend. Sprawled over four floors, the menu is a beast – so long and varied that no mortal could realistically conquer it (except maybe Joshua Armstrong, the obsessive behind the Library of Alexandria Wong Kei Tumblr, who ate and documented his way through every combination on offer). If you’re dining solo, go for the wonton noodle soup, assorted meat ho fun and the barbecue cold meat on hot rice. If in a group, order the black-bean-stuffed green peppers, bean curd and aubergine and plenty of stir-fried morning glory. Or just point to whatever the table next to you is having. The chances are it’ll be great. And whatever lands on your table, wash it down with the pot of free tea and a generous spoonful of the communal table chilli oil. AH

41–43 Wardour St, W1D 6PX

Haidilao Sichuan/hot pot

China’s premier hot pot chain might not look like much from the street in Piccadilly. But its ground-floor room is merely the waiting area (where you can get your nails done, for free). The restaurant itself is in a cavernous basement at least a football pitch in length. It’s raucous with birthdays and the signature noodle dance, which on my last two visits have been deftly performed by waiters from Ghana. There are other hot pot restaurants in London with more upscale ingredients, but Haidilao has always been about the experience while delivering a consistent meal. It’s also low-key one of the best vegan restaurants in the city, with two distinct vegan hot pot bases and enough varieties of tofu to marvel at the delicate flexibility of the humble soybean. BB

Unit 4, 5 Coventry St, W1D 7DH; Unit 7.0.9, The O2, SE10 0DX

Real Beijing Food House Beijing/Xi’an/Sichuan

If any one restaurant represents the new Chinatown it’s Food House, which has cult status among young Chinese students taking respite from Dover Street Market in red oil noodles. The menu is shared between Sichuan – dry hot pots and whole fish cooked in chilli oil – and heartier northern and central Chinese fare of belt noodles, rou jia mo (flatbreads with meat) and skewers. Everything is great, but I love the red oil noodles with wide-belt la mian, the width of a classroom ruler, mixed at the table with pak choi and dry lamb or beef, so that each belt is coated in a scarlet slick of chilli oil. Simple but brilliant. Make sure to bring heads, as this is one of the few places where dumplings can be ordered by the thirty. JN

46 Gerrard St, W1D 5QH

After the paywall: more than 70 Chinese restaurants across London serving food from Hong Kong, Sichuan, Dongbei, Lanzhou, Yunnan, Xi’an, Shanghai, Ningbo, Hunan, Henan and more.

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Welcome to the Vittles Chinatowns Project. In this guide, Lap-fai Lee picks the best restaurants in Birmingham’s Chinatown, which is still primarily centred on the local Chinese community but has evolved with the advent of Chinese students and the recent influx of Hong Kong migrants.

You can read the rest of the project here:

Who is Chinatown for?, by Xiao Ma
The New Chinatowns, by Barclay Bram
Crying in Wing Yip, by various
The Vittles Guide to London’s Chinatowns, by various
The Vittles Guide to the UK’s Chinatowns (including individual guides to Manchester, Liverpool, Cambridge and Glasgow), by various

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Birmingham’s Chinatown is not a tourist destination like the London equivalent. It is a living Chinatown; our businesses primarily cater to the local Chinese community. Growing up, we would go to Hor Tung for dim sum, but below the restaurant was a Chinese shop that seemed to sell everything, including copies of Hong Kong shows on VHS for rent. When the old Bull Ring was demolished, the Chinese community shifted its focus to The Arcadian, Hurst Street and Ladywell Walk, and more restaurants, Hong Kong-style bakeries, Cantonese BBQ joints and noodle shops started to open. When Chinese students arrived in the 2000s to study at Birmingham’s three universities, mainland Chinese flavours arrived with them. I will always remember my first taste of Sichuan boiled beef 水煮牛肉 – it was so different to the Cantonese and Hakka food I grew up eating at home.

With the recent influx of Hong Kong immigrants, the pendulum has swung back. The cha chaan teng diners are now in, bringing back that nostalgic colonial comfort food to dear old Blighty. With all the redevelopment in Southside – the district’s recent nomenclature – the area is now buzzing with activity and opportunity. Yet despite the changes, Chinatown continues to reflect the Birmingham spirit; it’s quiet and industrious, always self-deprecating. We’re confident in who we are and what we have to offer. All you have to do is come with an open mind. You will find something delicious, but more likely you will find a mind-blowing dish from a place you’ve never heard of, and it will change your life.

Peach Garden 桃苑 and Look In 樂意燒味 Cantonese/siu mei

Birmingham Chinatown is very good at Cantonese barbecue due, in large part, to the brothers who opened Peach Garden. Then they had a bust-up and one of them opened Look In. This is the city derby for Canto BBQ fans; you’re either Peach Garden Rovers or Look In Utd. But people who think there is a real difference between the two offerings are mistaken. They’re the same. The only real difference is in the timing because real barbecue fans know fresh is best. That’s why, when deciding where to go, you should simply peer through both windows at the lacquered roast meats. Analyse the crispness of the pork crackling and the juiciness of the char siu. Choose where to dine solely on what looks delicious right now. Peach Garden is slightly bigger. On Mondays and Tuesdays, if you come early enough, there is roast piglet available too.

Peach Garden, Unit 4–6 Bath Passage, Ladywell Walk, B5 4SZ

Look In, 6 Ladywell Walk, B5 4ST

After the paywall: recommendations for the best Cantonese, Sichuan, Shandong and Yunnanese cuisine – including the only good noodle specialist in Birmingham.

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Welcome to the Vittles Chinatowns Project. In this guide, Lisa and Helen Tse share their pick of restaurants in Manchester’s Chinatown, serving the UK’s largest Chinese population. Cantonese cuisine still reigns supreme, but new openings offering Gansu specialities and hot pot are helping to keep the community alive.

You can read the rest of the project here:

Who is Chinatown for?, by Xiao Ma
The New Chinatowns, by Barclay Bram
Crying in Wing Yip, by various
The Vittles Guide to London’s Chinatowns, by various
The Vittles Guide to the UK’s Chinatowns (including individual guides to Birmingham, Liverpool, Cambridge and Glasgow), by various

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Manchester’s Chinatown is compact – just half a square mile bounded by Moseley, Charlotte, Princess and Portland Streets, with the grand Imperial Chinese arch at its heart, a gift from China and a reminder of the old Sino-British textile trade that built this city. The food has shifted over the years: what was once solidly Cantonese now runs hot with Sichuan peppercorns and the vinegary punch of northern noodle joints. Stalwarts like Kwok Man and Hong Kong have closed, but things are shifting back as new waves of Hong Kong immigrants arrive, bringing with them the sweet-savoury char siu and the crackle of roast pork belly. Old Chinese acupuncture clinics sit beside new Taiwanese bubble tea stalls; herbalists who’ve been grinding the same remedies for forty years share a wall with hot-pot joints where university students queue for numbing broth.

During the pandemic, Manchester became home to the UK’s largest Chinese population, accounting for 3.4% of the national total. The rents may be brutal, and the economic headwinds real, but the community holds. This is not a Chinatown that performs for tourists. It just cooks, day after day, better than it has any right to. If you come hungry, you’ll eat things you’ve never heard of, cooked by people who’ve been doing it longer than you’ve been alive, and it will absolutely ruin you for anywhere else.

Only Yu Cantonese

The lift’s often broken, so the first test at Only Yu is the stairs. If you can manage two flights, you’ll be rewarded. Only Yu is run by two chefs and two front-of-house pros who’ve spent decades making other people’s restaurants great. Now they’re doing it for themselves, and you can taste the creative freedom. Red rice seafood cheung fun is a love letter to innovation that’s studded with prawns and scallops, every bite luxurious and silky. Charcoal har gau sounds gimmicky, but it’s packed with prawn mousse, while the Ibérico cha siu is so fatty and soft, you’ll forget where you are for a moment. This is a place you’ll climb for again.

1st Floor, Connaught Building, 58 George St, M1 4HF

Chef Diao Cantonese/dim sum

Chef Diao has been cooking for more than thirty-five years, and it’s evident in every dish. He knows dim sum and hand-pulled noodles like the back of his hand, with an instinct only decades of repetition can give. In Manchester, where good dim sum is expected, Chef Diao still manages to stand out. Har gau skins are paper-thin, the filling plump and sweet. The siu mai have that perfect ratio of pork to prawn, which makes you immediately want to order another round, while the noodles are springy and irregular, each strand carrying effort and care. Chef Diao’s food reminds you why dim sum takes years to master.

92–94 Oldham St, M4 1LJ

After the paywall: a late-night Cantonese spot offering beef brisket and wonton noodles; monster portions of baked pork chop rice; and a Gansu restaurant with some of the best noodles in the city.

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Welcome to the Vittles Chinatowns Project. In this guide, our local experts share their pick of the best places to eat in Liverpool’s historic Chinatown, as well as some more recent openings offering a range of regional cuisines.

You can read the rest of the project here:

Who is Chinatown for?, by Xiao Ma
The New Chinatowns, by Barclay Bram
Crying in Wing Yip, by various
The Vittles Guide to London’s Chinatowns, by various
The Vittles Guide to the UK’s Chinatowns (including individual guides to Birmingham, Manchester, Cambridge and Glasgow), by various

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Liverpool is home to Europe’s oldest Chinese community. Its Chinatown, near the docks, served the Chinese seafarers (as well as those from the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore) who have passed through and settled in the city since the 1880s. With the arrival of postwar migrants from Hong Kong, Chinese food then expanded via takeaways, which popped up in the suburbs and on the Wirral. Chinese families took over chip shops, fusing English comfort food with Chinese flavours to create the city’s signature salt and pepper everything – chips, ribs and siu mai.

The installation of Chinatown’s enormous arch in 2000, a gift from Liverpool’s twin city, Shanghai, heralded a new era of international students from mainland China to the city. Mini-Chinatowns sprung up to supply these contemporary sojourners, including Myrtle Street’s row of grocery shops and cafes and a cluster of hot pot restaurants on London Road. However, Liverpool’s historical Chinatown on Nelson Street is quiet for most of the year, coming alive only during Lunar New Year celebrations. Recent efforts have tried to bring the area back to life, including the trial of a new street market. But maybe Liverpool’s Chinatown hints at the future of Chinatowns in the UK: a mix of old-school dim sum parlours, flourishing takeaways and new Malaysian and Vietnamese spots, unconfined to a single street. Emily Beswick

Contributors

EB – Emily Beswick. JN – Jonathan Nunn. BP – Beatrice Png. HLL – Hai Lin Leung. RCJ – Ruth Cheung Judge. IR – Isaac Rangaswami. SMN – Sufea Mohamad Noor.

eJoy Asian Supermarket Cantonese/Shanghai/Sichuan

On the edge of the university campus sits eJoy, part Asian supermarket, part food court, all-round lunch haven. E-Jia Dim Sum, with a chef from Guandong, serves Cantonese, Malaysian and Singapore favourites, including some of the city’s crispiest siu yuk. Ba Guai Soup Bun specialises in xiao long bao, but offers a wide range of mix-and-match handmade dumplings for £8. By midday, eJoy is packed with students, lecturers and builders and it’s possible to pay via Weibo and WeChat. eJoy speaks to the multi-layered nature of East Asian life in Liverpool, and trying a bit of everything makes for a fun lunchtime. RCJ (with thanks to Zi Ye for Mandarin translation)

1 Myrtle Parade, L7 7EL

No.1 Chongqing Fish and Original Chicken Sichuan/Chongqing

I first came across this idiosyncratic basement restaurant on the short walk between Liverpool’s two great cathedrals – one Protestant, one Catholic – seduced by the sign that promises No.1 Chongqing Fish and Original Chicken. Although the name refers to China’s great megacity, the menu is really all over the place, a kind of hodgepodge of whatever the owners like: excellent Guilin noodles, or a delicious version of huangmenji (yellow braised chicken), a Dongbei dish that has been mainstreamed across China. If it has a speciality, it may be the sour-spicy Chongqing fish hot pot for two or the maocai, a kind of solo hot pot, which comes with three meats and two veg of your choice in a spicy broth for under a tenner. JN

109 Mount Pleasant, L3 5TF

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Welcome to the Vittles Chinatowns Project. In this guide, Sean Wai Keung shares his picks of Glasgow’s best Chinese fare, including long-standing traditional restaurants in Cowcaddens, the historical centre of the city’s Chinese community, as well as more recent, regional openings in the West End.

You can read the rest of the project here:

Who is Chinatown for?, by Xiao Ma
The New Chinatowns, by Barclay Bram
Crying in Wing Yip, by various
The Vittles Guide to London’s Chinatowns, by various
The Vittles Guide to the UK’s Chinatowns (including individual guides to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Cambridge), by various

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The first recorded Chinese restaurant in Glasgow, Wah Yen, opened on the Govan Road in 1948. As the more traditional shipbuilding industries, which had previously attracted Chinese migrants to the city, declined through the 1950s and 1960s, the number of food-focused places only grew. While Wah Yen didn’t survive, the Glasgow Chinatown complex opened its doors in 1992. It featured fifteen indoor units, a large restaurant and a traditional gate. It was in the Cowcaddens area to the north of the city, and was both a means of promoting Chinese businesses to those outside the community and a home for organisation and solidarity, working with other organisations such as Wing Hong Elderly Group to provide information on issues like housing and visas.

Unfortunately the complex itself has been in steady decline over the last decade, with a range of factors, including the pandemic, to blame. Despite this, Cowcaddens itself is still a major hub for Chinese businesses in the city, while over in the West End a new kind of ‘Chinatown’ is blossoming, with its restaurants catering more towards the growing Chinese student population at Glasgow University. This combination of newer restaurants alongside more long-established ones, as well as a few surprises in unexpected places, has ensured Glasgow’s continued position as one of Scotland’s best cities for Chinese food.

Loon Fung Cantonese/dim sum

Loon Fung opened in 1971 and has been specialising in dim sum ever since. While other places, including Chinatown Restaurant, have at times threatened its crown as the go-to place for yum cha in the city, Loon Fung’s longevity has ensured that it remains number one to many. Indeed, Chinese families from all over Scotland will have shared a meal together there at some point in their history and many multi-generational families will have memories of the restaurant stretching back decades. My favourites include the chicken feet in black bean sauce as well as the turnip cake and satay whelks.

411–413 Sauchiehall St, G2 3LG

Wah Kee Bakery Cantonese

While Chinatown has seen its fortunes rise and fall, one of the few businesses still alive there is Wah Kee, the type of old-school bakery guaranteed to bring nostalgia to anyone looking to enjoy a cha siu bao or a dan taat. Grab a tray and orange tongs and choose from a selection of classics, including meat floss buns and bolo bao as well as seasonal delicacies like mooncakes. Sitting in Wah Kee with a bun and a milk tea, it’s easy to be transported through time and, just for a moment, experience a taste of Glasgow’s Chinatown of old.

Unit 1–2, 42–46 New City Rd, G4 9JT

After the paywall: claypots, home-cooked-style Hong Kong food worth travelling for, and Southwest cuisine on the Southside worthy of the hype.

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Welcome to the Vittles Chinatowns Project. This guide offers an overview of Cambridge’s emerging Chinese restaurant scene. While the town doesn’t have a historic Chinatown, its large Chinese student population makes it one of the most exciting places in the country for regional Chinese cuisine.

You can read the rest of the project here:

Who is Chinatown for?, by Xiao Ma
The New Chinatowns, by Barclay Bram
Crying in Wing Yip, by various
The Vittles Guide to London’s Chinatowns, by various
The Vittles Guide to the UK’s Chinatowns (including individual guides to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow), by various

Subscribe now

According to the 2021 Census, Cambridgeshire has the highest proportional population of ethnic Chinese residents in the UK. While Cambridge’s Chinese migration history parallels London’s in some ways, its food scene has largely sidestepped the recent patterns that have swept through the capital’s dining scene: there are barely any Sichuan concepts or biang biang noodle joints, and new restaurant openings are rare due to a high concentration of university-owned buildings, expensive commercial rents and students opting for the sanctuary of college dining halls. Instead, Cambridge offers peripheral regional cuisines that, in some cases, arrived here before reaching London, and I maintain that the best xiao long baos in the UK can be found in the city.

With no centralised Chinatown, the city’s Chinese restaurants can instead be found in dispersed culinary pockets – in residential neighbourhoods, bubbled together along the peripheries of the local shopping centre or along the bustling Mill Road, which houses most of the city’s best independent food shops and restaurants. Cici Peng

Contributors

CP – Cici Peng
EML – Edward Moon Little
SC – Siqi Chong.

1+1 Rougamo Xi’an

1+1, the first Xi’an restaurant in Cambridge, was so successful that it has now opened a London branch in Holborn, a reversal of the usual expansion story. My favourite dish is the vegetarian rougamo, a sort of Chinese burger typically made with minced meat stuffed inside crispy flatbread. The veggie version is lighter, filled with crunchy veg in a sharp, garlic and vinegar dressing that piques the tongue and sits delightfully against the flaky dough – particularly in the warmer seasons when paired with the liangpi cold noodles. In winter, I opt for the lamb broth with handmade dao xiao noodles, which taste gamey in the best way, and the fish with sauerkraut noodles. It includes a delightfully sour broth that leans heavy on pickled mustard greens and sichuan peppercorn, rendering the velveteen layers of white fish even more tender. Sometimes, I get the braised chicken feet as a snack to go – they’re sold in vacuum packs for that very purpose. CP

84 Regent St, CB2 1DP

After the paywall: a husband–wife duo selling Shanghai-style cuisine, plus recommendations for Northern Jiaozi and Tianjin, Yunnanese and Sichuan spots.

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