Kensington, Chinese Restaurant Guide

“You get no airs and graces and wouldn’t spend hours here”, but this Chinese dive on Kensington’s main drag provides “great value food that has luckily survived in an expensive area” since the 1950s. “Long may it continue!”

The “excellent Chinese cuisine” – led by “exceptional and authentic Beijing duck” and “high-level dim sum” – makes nonsense of the usual rule that restaurants with spectacular views must be a rip off. On the 8th floor of the Royal Garden Hotel, with “fantastic vistas over Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park”, this consistent performer has bounced back in our food ratings this year. Even its most ardent fans concede it’s “not cheap”, mind, but their overall estimation? – “wonderful!”