Imperial China

I’ve actually been to imperial China twice since Christmas, and really enjoy the atmosphere… probably because the waitress is always a little snarky and of course playful. The first time I went with a massive group of friends and felt so bad that they had to put up with us (the others, not me! ;) the food comes with all your standard Chinese delights, though I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this joint as a dim sum restaurant. The set menus are bomb, they hit the spot and honestly left me half way between this world and the next. I went again the other night alone and felt totally comfortable just sitting in silence enjoying my dinner. The staff are chatty enough, attentive, and most importantly not too bothersome. On the pricier side, so thank goodness it’s pay day!

Love and keep coming back to this place. The crispy duck is excellent! They are very fast and efficient and sometimes they can be quite friendly (not very often, though). It is always full with chinese locals and the dishes are just good simple home style cooking and… comfort food what can I say! Prices are very reasonable as portions are good! Char siew (bbq pork), pork fillet in salt & pepper, chinese broccoli and fried noodles are really good. I’ve never disliked anything I’ve ordered. The only negative side is that if you finish late, they kind of give you that «finish up and leave already» look :). I will always return here either ways!

From the outside it looks a small place and was not appealing to me at all. After a friend’s recommendation i went and tried it.
There is a small pool with fish at the entrance and nice ambiance is welcoming you. We visited on a Saturday night around 7pm and luckily found a table for four. They have a constant flow but it is better to secure a table before you visit.
Ahh!!! I love dim sums. If I can I would like to visit this place just for dumplings. So yummy… So fresh… Good quality! I was told that they have a separate dim sum menu which is available before 5 pm. Crispy duck was average. Chicken; sweet & sour, lemon was bit dry, was not the best.
Staff was attentive as well. Overall it was a nice experience and I can say that it is above the average.

This, my first visit to this restaurant, was with a dim sum group and the party had 9 members which meant we could order quite a wide mix of dishes to share between us. The atmosphere was good, although the wait staff were a little short and sharp. The food was pretty good with my favourites being the prawn wantons in a spicy sauce (I would go again just to have more of these), the snowy dumplings with fish and cauliflower and the mushroom dumplings all of which I had never tried before so I can’t compare to other restaurants, but were excellent nevertheless. I can only personally vouch for the vegetarian and fish/​shellfish dishes ordered as I don’t eat other meat but there was nothing left at the end of the meal and one of the other guests who has experienced dim sum in many restaurants across London gave a very reasonable mark of ⁷⁄₁₀.

This has turned into our favourite dim sum place in central London. Although the staff is a bit rude all the other aspects are top notch! The dumplings are airy and taste just like they should taste like. The price is definitely competitive as you get a lot of food for most people for about £15 before service charge. Although beware hipsters out there — this place is visited by people from a lot of backgrounds so don’t expect to bring your hipster friends if they feel uncomfortable sitting next to a Spanish family. It is a place where you really get a good introduction to Chinese cuisine.

First time at Imperial China. We had a little wait for a table but it was lunch on a Saturday. The food came quickly and staff were attentive and speedy. We had a few different dishes and all were good. We had steamed pork dumplings, prawn and chive dumplings, monk’s vegetable cheung fun, net pastry with shredded duck, pan fried pork dumplings, and egg fried rice. All dishes were tasty. The fried rice was nice, but you get a very very small amount.
All the dishes are £3.10+ and you usually get three dumplings. It’s not a bad price and the quality is good. The dim sum isn’t the best in the world (see: Din Tai Fung!), but it’s some of the best in Chinatown.

We ended up coming here twice, once for lunch and then for dinner. I split the difference on this review, as I would give our lunch meal a 4 stars and the dinner only a 3 star. At first, you’re not sure what you’re walking into, as the restaurant is down a hallway/​alley. when you get to the end, there’s a lovely koi pond and lots of lanterns. It’s really a nice surprise.
When we came for lunch, we really enjoyed our meal. We had the veggie dim sum platter, the pork buns, spring rolls and a beef thing (can’t remember the name). The veggie dim sum platter was so good that we ended up ordering another platter! The pork buns were the least impressive of all the items that we ate, but they were still really good. We were super impressed with our lunch. So much so that when we needed to find a place for dinner a few days later, we didn’t bother to find another place, we decided to go back to Imperial China.
Unfortunately, the dinner was not as good as our lunch. All of our food did come out quickly, which was nice. We started our meal with the veggie dim sum again (still so good) and the wonton soup. The wonton soup was not as good as other wonton soups I’ve had. It was okay. The wontons were really large and hard to eat. The broth was good.
For dinner, we had the fried beef with veggies and the sliced duck with pineapple. You could get your dinner with rice or noodles. We chose the noodles. The noodles on their own aren’t that impressive. But when you mixed them in with your main dish, they really came alive. Both dishes had a lot of ginger in them, which I didn’t mind, but other people might. The beef was nice and tender. The duck was also good and the pineapple was a nice touch.
We also ordered drinks with dinner. We both got the imperial china, which was weird. The flavors just didn’t seem to go together and the color of it (not that it can be helped) was awful. There was also a garnish of some sort floating on the top of the drink. No idea what it was.

This is my second time to Imperial China with my family. Both times the atmosphere was great and had friendly services.
We had dim sum from a tick sheet. We ordered a variety of dishes. Having been to different dim sum places, all of the dishes from Imperial China were pretty standard. However, the X.O. cause fried Cheung Fun was amazing! Not to greasy, and was a large enough portion to share. The fried squid with sweet and sour dip was also delicious, very crispy and had a large portion compare to other places I have been to.
Prices are reasonable, however, my order of orange juice could have been bigger. Other than that, no complaints at all! I will definitely be returning!

After trying most restaurants in China town I thought I try the Imperial China restaurant with a friend. I’m allergic to prawns, it makes my lips swell and my throat too, without medical help I could suffocate and die. Anyway, the waitress arrived and her English was really bad. I tried to explain that I can’t eat prawns. When I ordered some dim sum, I asked a few times if there is really no prawn in it. She even left to ask the chef. I eat pork dim sum often and never had any problems, thanks to good service. The dim sum arrived and the moment I bit into the dim sum I spat it out and got an allergic reaction. I was in pain and started crying, the waitress saw me and ignored me for a while and then brought me the bill. I was forced to pay for the food before I could leave to get medical help. There was no sorry, nothing. I felt very embarrassed.

Took 2 hours to get a simple order of dumplings and congee. When the order came, it was wrong. Mediocre food, bad service.

I’ve been brought here on multiple occasions by friends and have had amazing food each time. It is really best for groups so you can share dishes and try lots of different things. I would definitely recommend the shrimp dumplings dim sum but I think every dish is delicious and true to it’s name. We have never ordered something that turned out to be very different i.e. not crispy, not large enough, too much fruit/​veg rather than meat.
I was very surprised at some of the previous reviews (save for the review by Sarah T. just below mine) as I’ve always experienced wonderful food and wonderful service when I come here but perhaps they have improved in the last couple of years. I particularly want to highlight the staff who are so patient. They were very nice to my friends who aren’t used to dim sum and very helpful when we asked about various ingredients. They have also been respectful about my slight fish allergy.
I prefer this restaurant over all the others in Chinatown. It may be a bit more expensive but it’s worth it.

I was incredibly impressed with Imperial China, maybe because I wasn’t expecting to be after reading these reviews. Went with a group of 9 people, and by the end we were all pleasantly full, with only a few people having to «take one for the team» to finish off some last pieces. The variety is good, with all the standard favorites. Nothing was bad.
The standout ones that I would definitely over more of are the prawn and chive dumplings and the baked pork pastries (char siu sou). We also got the cheung fun with prawn and char siu, char siu bau, har gau, taro croquette, and sliced fish congee. For the sweets, which were very good, we got the egg custard tarts and the black sesame buns, which were huge, easily splittable. Off the regular menu, we also got the soft shell crab appetizer, which was good, but not the best I’ve had. They had chrysanthemum tea, and it was just a very relaxing experience, which is practically unheard of for Chinatown. The waitstaff spoke good English, and service was impeccable – they cleared dishes promptly, and even checked the teapot levels proactively.
There’s one caveat, which is that the food comes out really quickly, so I think the food is all preprepared and ready to go. This was most evident in the fish congee, where the fish seemed precooked, rather than raw with the hot porridge poured over it to cook it, which is preferable.
All told, it was less than £13 per person, including service charge, which is very affordable, especially for the atmosphere and service. We had a booking, but the place was surprisingly quiet for a Sunday lunch. Maybe the weather was too good, and everyone was spending time reading a novel in a park.

A big group of friends and I ordered a whole list of things from the menu and overall, everything was decent. Having had dimsum in many a place thus far, I can’t say anything stood out as outstanding nor sub-​par. I do give the restaurant a big credit for the spacious and clean décor, as well as the efficient service. It’s a solid choice to satiate any cravings for dimsum.

Great dim sum! Bring a big group (that’s a given). I love London Chinese restaurants, traditional Chinese menus with English translations, incl the dim sum order sheet. Believe me, it’s a nightmare for me in HK. :-)
Dinner is delicious also if you didn’t have enough dim sum in the afternoon, go back in the evening for more. The roast duck, Capitol ribs was a couple of the dishes I remember from this evening. The dinner worked out ~£20 per person (7 of us) with 9 dishes of food with boiled rice, tea, beer and soft drinks.
I’ll definitely be back, it has been quite consistent.

A recent trip with 17 other people had us ordering a whole bunch of Dim Sum here. Initially, there were about 12 of us who were going to go, and when we got there, there were two people by the same name who had reserved tables for 12. Anyway, the crowd got bigger and bigger and bigger, and we were moved higher and higher and higher up the restaurant until we got to this cosy little private room on the 3^rd floor where we could eat and chat to our hearts content. The décor is much like a nice chinese restaurant you would find in Hong Kong or Singapore. It’s not posh like Royal China’s is, but nice.
We order about 200 types of Dim Sum (more like 30, but when you have that many people it sure seems like 200), and it consists of the usual har gow, siew mai and cheung fun, and a few other types of chive dumplings and the like. Most of it was… well, about right, not poor, but not great either. The glutenous rice with chicken and a wasabi flavored dumpling were the best things there, but the filling of the cheung fun, and the siew mais were the greatest disappointment. The filling for the cheung fun was, well, meagre, and the siew mais came, well, a little dried out. Most of the steamed foods were good, but it seemed like the baked items and the fried items were of a better standard.
I think if I were bringing 17 people to Dim Sum at around £15 a head, I’d go back to Royal China on Baker Street. I’m just glad this place wasn’t like most in Chinatown where they rush to toss you out when you’re done. :)

We went as a large group and ordered a lot of dim sum. We got a lot of the standards — har gow, siu mai, cheung fun, turnip cake, steamed sticky rice in lotus leaves, taro root balls. Everything was good, well prepared. You won’t go away floored but it’s solid dim sum. It came out to about £20/​person.

If it wasn’t for my office Christmas party, I don’t think I would’ve normally picked this place to eat. We had one of the karaōke private rooms — which was definitely a lot nicer than I expected. The songs are a little dated but hey — people usually go for bon jovi anyway right?
The food was overall okay, the soup was good — but not hot enough. The duck pancakes were really good but the mains took forever to come out. Luckily we had plenty of wine to keep us company — which added to the festivities. All of the dishes were good… but also I was heavily under the influence.

Yes we could’ve gone to a cheaper Chinese restaurant, but I wanted a place with more ambiance and Imperial China didn’t disappoint. We enjoyed DIM SUM. We stuck mostly with dumplings and some assorted snacks, but did order the ROASTED DUCK. I was definitely surprised when this dish of shredded meat came out:
The rice paper wraps made it reminiscent of eating tacos. Very lean meat, but I missed my duck fat and crispy duck skin!

Caveat: I am no dim sum or Chinese food expert.
You feel like you are being transported somewhere else as you cross over the little bridge into this metropolis of Chinese food. We had an amazing round table with big comfy chairs in the second room on the second floor. (This place is enormous!)
No trolley service (guess that is passé?) so you order dim sum off the paper menu. Every type of dumpling and glutenous combo with pork and/​or shrimp came rolling out onto our table. We gorged ourselves silly for 15 quid a head.
I was sad there was no spinach or bok choy on the offering (guess I could have asked).
Everything was tasty – no complaints except for the ridiculous salt intake I will now need to sweat out…

This place is in Chinatown and it is much bigger on the inside than I had expected. There is also a little bridge and stream at the entrance, which sets it apart, and I had the feeling that I was somewhere outside London.
We came here as part of a huge group of friends and we took up two big tables at the back of the restaurant. We were there for dim sum (yum char) lunch and we went crazy when marking our choices on the list — 4 servings of steamed pork buns, 20 egg tarts, etc, etc. The food all came out within a fairly short timeframe and our table looked like how I imagine downtown New York — so many skycrapers, but made of the bamboo steam baskets!
My favourites were the roast duck and a sweet dumpling which was in the shape of a rabbit! Total cost was around 20 pounds each, which seems fair considering the amount we ordered, but may be considered expensive than most for a Chinese lunch.
I thought the service was pretty good. We still got served tea even after we had paid and we were still chatting among friends. I think this is one of the better restaurants in Chinatown for lunch and I would visit again.

Das Imperial China ist sehr zu empfehlen.
Allerdings sollte man zuvor einen Tisch reservieren, sonst kann es eng werden.