The Best Restaurants in Chinatown, London

Londoners send visitors to Chinatown and then eat Chinese food somewhere else. That is worth saying plainly, and it is not snobbery: the most interesting Chinese cooking in London is in Victoria, Mayfair and Soho proper, and Chinatown is not trying to compete with it.

Chinatown restaurants are a working food district rather than a destination dining one, and judged on what it is actually for it is excellent. It is where you eat at eleven at night, where dim sum happens before five, and where a table of six can eat well without booking three weeks out.

There is also something you should know about how this page was written.

Why every guide to Chinatown reads the same

Almost nothing here publishes anything. Checking this district against the restaurants’ own information, which is how every other page on this site is written, produced a short list very quickly.

Several sites do not resolve at all. One has a security certificate so broken that a browser will refuse it. Wong Kei’s old web address now forwards to a business in Pennsylvania. These are small family restaurants that have run for decades on a reputation and a queue rather than a marketing budget, which is admirable and makes them almost impossible to verify.

So other guides copy each other, and the hours and prices in them are frequently years old. What follows is three places whose own information could actually be read, plus what the district is genuinely good for. It is shorter than the lists you will find elsewhere and every line in it is checked.

The three that publish their own information

Four Seasons, Gerrard Street

The roast duck, and it is the reason most people who know Chinatown go to Chinatown.

Four Seasons Chinatown

Address

12 Gerrard Street, Chinatown

Nearest

Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus

Standing

Their own claim is the best roast duck in the world, and the Financial Times has lauded it

How to get in

Order the duck. It hangs in the window and it is what the room exists for, and ordering around it is a mistake people make once. They publish no hours and no booking policy, so this is a turn up and see restaurant, which at this price is a reasonable gamble.

Orient London, Wardour Street

Next to the Chinese Gate, and the one with the most useful published rules on this page by a distance.

Orient London

Address

Wardour Street, next to the Chinese Gate

Nearest

Piccadilly Circus or Leicester Square

Hours

Monday to Thursday midday to 11pm, Friday and Saturday 11.30am to 11.30pm, Sunday 11.30am to 10.30pm. Last orders 15 minutes before closing

Booking

No bookings at all on Saturday, Sunday or bank holidays before 5.30pm

Price

The dim sum menu runs until 4.45pm

Standing

Beside the Chinese Gate on Wardour Street

How to get in

Two rules they publish and nobody repeats. Dim sum stops at a quarter to five, so a late lunch plan is a dinner plan. And they take no bookings at all before half past five on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays, which is exactly when you would try to book, so weekend dim sum means queueing whatever you do.

Plum Valley, Gerrard Street

Plum Valley

Address

20 Gerrard Street, W1D 6JQ

Nearest

Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus

Hours

Sunday to Thursday midday to 11pm, Friday and Saturday midday to midnight

Booking

Online or by telephone. Karaoke rooms need advance booking and carry a room charge and a minimum spend

Standing

A black fronted room on Gerrard Street, with karaoke rooms upstairs

How to get in

Open to midnight on a Friday and Saturday, which in the West End is the point. The karaoke rooms are booked separately, carry a room charge and have a minimum spend, so a group turning up expecting to add one to dinner will be told a number.

What Chinatown restaurants are actually good for

Late. This is the honest answer. When the West End kitchens have stopped, Gerrard Street is still serving, and a room that seats you at eleven is worth more than a marginally better dinner you cannot get into.

Dim sum, and only before five. Nearly every dim sum menu in the district has an afternoon cutoff and Orient’s is quarter to five. Arrive at six expecting dumplings and you are ordering from a dinner menu instead.

Groups. Round tables, shared dishes and rooms that can take eight without a fortnight’s notice. Very little else in the West End can say that.

Roast meats in windows. Duck, pork belly and char siu hanging in the glass is not decoration, it is the menu, and the places doing it are the places to eat at.

What it is not good for

The best Chinese food in London. That is in Victoria, Mayfair and Soho proper, and the Chinese restaurants guide covers the three rooms worth the journey, all of which have a cheaper way in that they do not advertise.

A booking on a Saturday afternoon. See above: at least one of these refuses them outright before half past five.

Quiet. Gerrard Street is pedestrianised, permanently busy and loud, and that is the character rather than a fault.

Practical notes

Go late or go early. Between six and eight Chinatown absorbs the entire pre theatre West End, and the queues on Gerrard Street are at their worst.

Leicester Square is the station, and Piccadilly Circus is barely further. Both exits put you a minute from the gates.

Check before you travel, and expect to fail. Most of these restaurants do not publish hours. If a specific place matters to you, telephone it. If it does not, walk down Gerrard Street and look in the windows, which is how the district has always worked.

Everything here was taken from each venue’s own published information in September 2026 and rechecked on 2 October 2026, and the reason this list is three restaurants long rather than fifteen is that three is how many published anything to check.

Where to go next

Late night restaurants in London puts Chinatown in its proper context as the district most likely to still be cooking at midnight, with the exact published cut-off for each kitchen.

The best Chinese restaurants in London covers the three rooms doing the most interesting cooking, none of which is in Chinatown. The Soho guide covers the streets immediately around it.

For eating late more generally, London after dark covers what is open once the kitchens close.

Questions we get asked

What are the best restaurants in Chinatown, London?

Four Seasons on Gerrard Street for the roast duck, which is what the district is best known for and what the Financial Times has praised. Orient London beside the Chinese Gate for dim sum, served until a quarter to five. Plum Valley for a late table, open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Be aware that most Chinatown restaurants publish no information at all.

Is Chinatown the best place for Chinese food in London?

No, and Londoners know it. The most interesting Chinese cooking in the city is in Victoria, Mayfair and Soho proper. Chinatown is a working food district: excellent for eating late, for dim sum before five, for groups and for roast meats, and not trying to compete with the tasting menu rooms elsewhere.

What time does dim sum stop in Chinatown?

Around the middle of the afternoon, which catches people out constantly. Orient London publishes a dim sum menu that runs until 4.45pm and then stops. Arriving at six expecting dumplings means ordering from a dinner menu instead. If dim sum is the plan, make it a lunch plan.

Can you book a table in Chinatown?

At some, and not always when you want to. Orient London states plainly that it accepts no bookings at all on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays before 5.30pm, which is precisely when most people would try. Several other restaurants in the district publish no booking information at all, so telephoning is the only reliable route.

How late is Chinatown open?

Later than most of the West End, which is the main reason to know it. Plum Valley runs to midnight on Friday and Saturday and Orient London to half past eleven. When the surrounding restaurants have stopped serving, Gerrard Street is still going, and a table at eleven beats a better dinner you cannot get.

Where is Chinatown in London?

Between Shaftesbury Avenue and Leicester Square, centred on Gerrard Street, which is pedestrianised and entered through ornamental gates. Leicester Square is the nearest station and Piccadilly Circus is barely further. Both put you about a minute from the gates.