Elstree, Chinese Restaurant Guide

“Reliable, high-quality Chinese fare” is the hallmark of this family-run operation now in its fifth decade, with five outlets in well-heeled parts of the capital. “Not all the food is authentic Chinese cuisine, but it is all immaculately prepared and as fresh as you like”, and comes with a “polite welcome and attentive service”. “A cut above – prices are to match”. Holland Kwok opened the original on Chelsea’s King’s Road in 1979, closely followed by branches in Esher, Mill Hill and Knightsbridge, then Wandsworth Common in 2011. He now runs the company with his son Andrew. Top Tip – “weekday lunch is exceptionally good value”.

“Reliable dim sum” ensures that the conventional Cantonese restaurant on the ground floor of Colindale’s Bang Bang Oriental Food Hall is “always busy” – offering a “great” alternative to the hit-and-miss kiosks upstairs. It has a twin in Chinatown (see also).

“You’re never short of choices” at this cavernous Oriental food court in Colindale, whose 25 stalls offer “a great variety of Asian cuisine” from Mumbai to Tokyo, while there’s the more conventional Green Dragon Chinese restaurant downstairs. But it pays to be careful in your choices: “certain stalls are definitely better than others” (and “some are really not worth the money”).

Andrew Hung quit a career in architectural engineering for this “polished” Colindale passion project: a glossily spec’d out unit at the foot of an apartment block serving high-quality cuisine that fans say is “faultless: perfect for lunch or supper” (with dim sum to the fore for the former). The worst critique this year? “Good, but didn’t quite live up to Giles Coren’s review”.

This well-known Cantonese group retains a large fan-base praising “still among the best dim sum in London”, presented in “comfortable surroundings” by “amiable (if overselling) service” (although feedback on the evening offering suggests it’s a matter of “fine dining prices for indifferent food”). As damaging, though, are the company’s multiplying legal problems, with diners complaining of “no alcohol licence!” at the Baker Street branch, which was stripped of it in 2024 and fined £360,000 for employing illegal immigrants, and in March 2025 its Royal Gourmet division, which produces wontons, steamed buns and roasted duck at a facility in Park Royal, was fined a total of £113,000 by Uxbridge magistrates after pleading guilty to 11 serious failures in food and hygiene safety – including rodent droppings. Royal Gourmet also paid £332,000 in fines for breaches of the Water Industry Act back in 2019. As one reporter comments: “Oh dear, what went wrong over the last decade! A bit shambolic… , and the quality of food has definitely worsened” in recent times.

Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, this “excellent” (if “slightly expensive”) Chinese in Hendon has ploughed an incredibly consistent – and unique in the UK – path as a venue for kosher Asian cuisine. “A great place for a family celebration or business meeting”, it takes its name from a Chinese city on the Silk Road which hosted a ‘lost’ Jewish trading community for more than 1,000 years.

“Great northeastern Chinese cooking and dumplings!” are reported at this trio of pitstops originally in Colindale’s Bang Bang oriental food hall, and now with standalone locations in Covent Garden and more recently near Liverpool Street. They are the work of 27-year old Wenjun Xiang, and inspired by her upbringing in Dalian, China. “Much nicer than Din Thai Fung and A LOT cheaper!”