Ethnic

Purists, take note: this isn’t your traditional dim sum restaurant and doesn’t claim to be. Instead, My Neighbours the Dumplings has adopted the dim sum dining style of shared small plates and given it a hip east London twist, combining traditional Chinese dishes with other popular Asian influences, including Thai-style green papaya salad and a saké-based drinks menu.

But don’t worry, these guys really do make excellent dumplings. The pastry is handmade and the meat (all free-range and from the Rare Breed Meat Company) tastes like actual meat rather than something you hope is pork. Their take on the classic steamed pork-and-prawn siu mai was light and fresh; the interpretation of a turnip cake looked alarmingly burnt but was crispy and moreish; and the sticky lotus-leaf-wrapped rice was packed with tasty surprises. Vegetarians are very well catered for too, with plump steamed shiitake mushroom dumplings and fried aubergine and sesame ‘potstickers’ trumping their meaty counterparts.

Tempting as it is to stuff yourself silly with multiple orders of the savoury delights, save room for dessert. Heavenly chocolate dumplings were like naughty, deep-fried Milky Ways while the matcha tea rice pudding with coconut jam had me licking the bowl – although I was so full it was hard for me to move even this much.

After running a series of pop-ups, MNTD has wisely chosen to settle down on an increasingly popular stretch in Lower Clapton that’s full of new restaurants, and it’s already attracting a loyal local following with friendly service, distressed walls, communal tables, glowing street food signs, reasonable prices and a buzzing atmosphere. On a Saturday night, the place is packed with hordes of hungry hipsters propping up the bar, sipping saké-based cocktails and waiting for a table (there’s no booking, obvs).

Imperial Treasure is a rare creature. It’s one of only a handful of London restaurants serving refined Cantonese cooking. That’s not to say we don’t have brilliant high-end Chinese restaurants – oh, we do – but many of them draw from regions with punchier ingredients like Sichuan and Hunan (and of course Taiwan, whose food has influenced enough ‘Chinese’ restaurants to warrant a mention). True Cantonese cooking is subtle and nuanced, its emphasis as much on texture as taste.

This place has blowout pricing, but is also a slick operator destined for Michelin stars (its overseas branches are already starry spots). The smart way to eat here, therefore, is to come with a group of like-minded food pilgrims. Portion sizes are decent, so you can share the fiscal pain. But do show some culinary savvy. You may be drawn to the takeaway fave of crispy Peking duck with pancakes, but it’s the £25 Cantonese-style barbecue version – the kind hanging in Chinatown windows – you should order. Firstly, it’s sensational. But it’s also enough for two, to which you can add a £5 bowl of white rice. Get the wok-fried ho fun too: £28 gets you a tangle of smoky, slippery, wide ribbons, with needle-thin slivers of ginger, fresh beansprouts and impossibly tender slices of high-quality Angus beef. The seafood is stunning, but costly: a plate of fresh, juicy stir-fried prawns with dried chillies was £28

 

More than a decade after it started wowing London’s big spenders with its classy Cantonese cooking, this Michelin-starred trendsetter remains a benchmark against which all high-end Chinese restaurants should be judged.

The basement’s stylish interior (all dark wood lattice screens and moody lighting) still attracts the kind of beautiful people who might suppress their appetites – though there was little evidence of restraint on our midweek night visit. Plate after plate landed on tables around us, including signature dishes such as silver cod roasted in champagne, and jasmine tea-smoked organic pork ribs.

We started with the dim sum platter, a basket of superbly crafted dumplings. The pastry was perfect in give and texture, just elastic enough to encase generous bites of flavour-packed meat and seafood. Sweet and sour Duke of Berkshire pork with pomegranate was equally good, the melting tenderness of top-quality meat turning the clichéd staple into a luxury – Chinese takeaways should weep with shame. Drinks run from cocktails via high-priced wines to specialist teas.

If you’re plugged into social media, or are just a human in London who reads the news, here’s what you’ve most likely heard about Din Tai Fung: a) it was founded in Taiwan by a young Chinese immigrant but now has branches in more than a dozen countries; b) it’s best known for its xiao long bao – Shanghainese soup dumplings – but also plenty of regional Chinese street food; and c) it’s a cult phenomenon, where you should expect to queue. And while a) and b) are true, c) is really just a matter of timing. If you hate to wait, go for an early lunch: at noon on a Tuesday, we walked right in; on a Saturday night, it’ll probably be a different story. But you can drink and snack (space permitting) in the bar area or leave your name and number at the door: they’ll text you when your table is ready. So far, so civilised. Inside, it’s also civilised. This is its London flagship, and smarter than a typical no-bookings chain. You head past a glass-sided kitchen where a swarm of dumpling chefs in surgical masks churn out tiny edible parcels at a terrifying pace. The dining room is an airy spot, tricked out in shades of brown and grey, with a central atrium. Menus are laminated, sure, and the tables wipe clean, but there are ink prints on the walls and orchids on shelves. Service is hyper-efficient, with some dishes seeming to magically arrive the instant we ordered them, though we didn’t feel rushed.

But anyway, the food. It’s mostly great. Of the signature soup dumplings, the crab and pork are the ones to order: the sweetness of the crustacean beautifully balancing out the fatty meatiness of the pig. But there’s so much more to this place than xiao long bao. The wontons, for instance, are terrific, in part because of the sheer quality of the wrappers: the freshly made pastry flapping around like fat ribbons of pasta, a blank canvas for the dense, good-quality fillings. The prawn and pork ones with black vinegar and chilli oil are one of the best dishes here. The sauce is fragrant, with just a hint of heat, and thick with braised scallions: it’s seriously addictive. Another must-order is the crispy prawn pancake: imagine a plate of prawn toast but without any of that pesky bread to get in the way. It was bouncy, golden and sweet. A chilled pudding of sago thick with fresh mango and pomelo (a mild, giant citrus fruit) was superb. Just go with the sago. Have faith.

Just outside Chinatown, this is London’s prime exponent of the alluringly fiery and mouth-numbing cuisine of China’s Sichuan province.

The distance north of Shaftesbury Avenue, though only 20 metres, is important. Barshu (the original of a Sichuan quartet along with Ba Shan, Baozi Inn and newcomer Baiwei) is distinct from Chinatown’s mostly Cantonese restaurants in looks and pricing, as well as cuisine. The dark wooden ground floor is brightened by red lanterns and partitioned by a beautifully carved screen; upstairs is similarly woody.

Despite such rusticity, you could spend extravagantly here – though there are ways to lessen the bill. Order tea (£2 per person) rather than wine (the cheapest bottle is £21.90). You’ll need to slake your thirst to counteract the fiery, numbing and sour flavours that characterise western Chinese cookery. The menu holds much interest, listing the likes of pea jelly, prairie tripe, and stir-fried chicken gizzards with pickled chilli – each dish is depicted.

To start, order from the ‘Chengdu street snacks’ section, rather than the pricey appetisers; sweet-potato noodles in hot and sour sauce was a filling bowlful of noodle soup, chilli oil and numbing peppercorns, for just £4. Main courses of fish-fragrant pork slivers (a pleasing textural mix including wood-ear fungus and crunchy bamboo shoot) and stir-fried long beans, chopped small and well-paired with minced pork, also hold delight.