The Vittles Guide to the UK’s Chinatowns
The Vittles guide to historic and new Chinatowns, with more than 150 Chinese-restaurant recommendations across the UK
Welcome 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 below.
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
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
After the paywall: our guides to more Chinatowns and Chinese restaurants in Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford and Sheffield.