Princess Garden Of Mayfair

It’s probably the best dim sum I’ve had in London, which is saying a lot, since I find 99% of the Chinese restaurants in London to be entirely inedible (and this is coming from someone who’s actually Chinese). Plus, I’ve been spoiled by the dim sum restaurants of the West Coast of the USA and Canada, where I grew up. So.
Down to the nitty gritty: the surroundings are nice — not dim or dingy, but bright, clean and modern. Service is prompt and polite, regardless of whether we were conversing in English or Cantonese, which is always a plus.
I was surprised by the «Taiwan”-style char siu buns, which were a hybrid of pineapple buns and char siu bao, but they were absolutely delicious. A little on the small size, but delicious. The cheung fun was fresh and tasty, as were the har gao and siu mai. The xiao long bao were a let down though; the wrapping was too thick and the lack of hot soup bursting in my mouth as I bit into the dumplings was a disappointment.
All in all, very affordable prices for some dim sum that didn’t taste like they’d just been defrosted and re-​steamed.

Usually a good meal and safe backup plan when I’m not sure where else to go and craving some Chinese and some soup.
Service is fairly good and warm.
Food is mostly good including chicken, beef, fish dishes.

Excellent service from the staff. Delicious food and good jazmin tea. although the place is quite secluded but we were able to find it…
Recommended to visit

Overpriced.
Slow service.
Small plates.
The food that I did get, had been sitting under heat lamp for 30 mins and was dried– and this was just an order of steamed rice.
How difficult is that to make!!!
Skip this place. It’s not worth the price.

Was there for a weekday dinner, not dim sum. It’s basically a higher class Western-​style Chinese food (more authentic than P.F. Chang) restaurant (with white tablecloth). Everything tasted fine and fresh but nothing special at all. The menu is quite extensive with a lot of alcoholic choices. Probably a good place if you are trying to impress someone who prefers this sort of dining experience.

So many great pints of ale, so little time. Maybe I’ll stop back later as the now have a «late licence» … This review brought to you by …

My go to place for dimsum on the weekend. Its tucked away in an alley off of Selfridges. The service is excellent (when compared to dimsum places in Chinatown) however the food can be a miss — the food does come out very very quickly sometimes. But still will prefer to go get dimsum here than in Chinatown due to the service, ambiance and taste.

This is going to be a weird review, in that I think it was a 4-​star experience, but I’m not in a rush to go back at all.
The food was good. They have very nice tea. The service was very good. It wasn’t expensive at all, about £14pp with 6 people, though I will caveat that by saying that I was nervous about ordering too much, given the fear of sticker shock when the bill came. The first hesitation I have if that everything came out very very quickly. Like, ready-​made quickly, and correspondingly not as hot as I would like.
However, the dim sum menu was really difficult. Everything’s in English, with very nice descriptive names. As someone who orders dim sum frequently, it made it hard to identify what I wanted. There are no pictures. So I ended up mostly getting «standards», which was fine, but the things I tried to branch out with ended up all being the same, i.e. various steamed prawn dumplings. It was pretty nerve-​wracking– I felt like I didn’t know how to order, and I was in charge of ordering for the group. So, I think I’d rather go to a place where I can know what I’m getting. For example, Dragon Castle does the balance of good service and an easy menu, though location is vastly different.

My favorite place to go for dim sum in London.
Food is well executed, service is good, and the place is clean. I’d recommend making a reservation for weekends if you don’t want to wait for a table (although not the worst place to have to wait for a table, since they have a full bar and lots of couches).
No push-​carts here, although I don’t recall ever seeing push-​carts in London. Honestly though, I don’t even like push-​carts. I’ve been to yum cha enough times to know what I want on a menu, and things can go wrong with push-​carts. First, it is more likely you’re getting «leftovers» on a push-​cart. Nope, I didn’t want the ugly under-​fried radish cake the first time I saw it come around on the cart, so why would I want it the fifth time? Second, I get irrationally upset when the push-​cart ladies speak Mandarin instead of Cantonese, and don’t understand when someone tries to order in Cantonese. I haven’t had this problem in London, but it’s a common occurrence in Canada nowadays.
Anyways, everything I had here was well prepared. I particularly liked the cuttlefish cake tofu skin cheung fun and the XO beef chow hor fun. Generally, nothing too innovative in terms of dishes, but still my first choice when I’m craving yum cha.

Came to this restaurant for a Chinese New Year dinner and it was fantastic. I’ve had a lot of hits and misses with the restaurants in Chinatown, so I felt quite fortunate to find a place that actually tastes authentic. We had about 8 courses but the standouts were the crab fried rice and the sea bass, which was a big hit. You definitely won’t go home hungry!

This is a solid, upscale (white linen tablecloth) chinese restaurant. Their dimsum is excellent as are their main dishes. We tried various dumpling, rice, noodle, and meat dishes, all of which were very good.
We didn’t have any alcohol and got out for 25 GBP/​pp. All in all, very good for the price. I would definitely come back.

Apps:
Grilled dumplings, ok, nothing to rave about
Mongolian Lamb in lettuce cups: unique taste; bits if bone though
Entrée:
Crispy beef… good flavor, no real spice though, served pretty much dry; no reason to get rice as well
15 minutes after being seated by myself someone other than my waiter inquired if I wanted to order.
I went there thinking dim sum, I guess they do not do that as part of evening service.
Explore, I am sure there are better alternatives out there

What I loved most about Princess Garden was the atmosphere — such a lovely change from the usual, uptight environment of dim sum places in Chinatown and Royal China. Although it was lunchtime on a Saturday, the place wasn’t crowded at all, and was rather peaceful.
The restaurant is filled with oriental statues and antiques, has a lovely reception area, and is not ram-​packed with tables. The dining area had natural light, with a conservatory feel. The waiting staff weren’t rude as one would expect in a Chinese eating place in London, and were decent and helpful.
Prices were in the average zone, with most dim sum dishes less than £4 a plate, but portions and size of food were a little bit smaller when compared to other dim sum places. The xiao long bao (soup dumplings) were in reality nothing more than regular chicken dumplings, which was disappointing.
The place did not serve liu sha bao, (steamed buns with runny egg yolk filling) which was a shame, but they did have steamed custard buns, which had a more solid custard filling which just couldn’t match up to a liu sha bao.
I went with a company of four, which is not a good idea for any dim sum place! Most of the dishes come in portions of 3, which is a challenge to split between four diners. (‘Let’s halve that egg tart… oops. Do you want the side with more egg or???’)
Overall, Princess Garden is located on a posh, quiet street, and is an absolute pleasure to dine in if one wants a quiet afternoon with friends (headcount within multiples of three please) over average dim sum.

This is one of my favorite places for dim sum. Unlike what the décor might indicate, it isnt as expensive (by London standards of course), especially for dim sum. I have been here quite a few times with friends and the trick is to come with a decently big group of people (I found 3 to be the magic number). The dim sums are shared so price per person is usually around 14 – 15 GBP which is decent in my opinion.
The grub:
So I have only ever had dim sum here. But it’s the reason I go back constantly. They have an amazing selection of dishes (wider than some of the other places in the city). And they do the classic dimsum dishes like shumai really well. I loved almost all the things I tried here (which is quite a lot to list) but special mention goes to their char siu buns, chaofun with wrapped dough stick and egg custard tarts.
Definitely recommend this place if you are interested in some authentic, finger licking dim sum

This is probably the finest Dim Sum restaurant for the well dressed. If you want white table cloth, best service, fine food, high price, this is it. This restaurant is run to satisfy even the pickiest diner. I can’t say that the carts were out running around like others but I arrived at 2PM in the afternoon so perhaps the carts were gone? Anyway, we ordered Dim Sum from the menu and it hit the spot.
You can’t go wrong and they certainly are classy.
As for authenticity? This meets my expectation for ‘real’ Chinese food.
I didn’t give it 5 stars because lunch for 2 was 60 Pounds. Ouch. I was impressed with the quality, just not price-​performance.

Tucked away from Oxford street, I didn’t expect to find a nice chinese restaurant in this area. I only knew about this place as a friend planned dim sum here a while back but recently had dinner here.
Dim sum — definitely top quality for all of your typical dishes. They have a few really good ones like this bean curd prawn roll thing that you don’t see everywhere so definitely try a few things out that normally you don’t get elsewhere.
Dinner — I was pleasantly surprised as they have such a long list of dishes to chose from and also reasonably priced. It was great that there was also an extensive vegetarian menu. I really enjoyed the roast duck but a little underwhelmed with the sizzling lamb. Most of the tofu dishes are great and all the ingredients are fresh and cooked perfectly.
Service is great so if you want to avoid the abrupt service you get in chinatown, definitely give this place a try.

Love this place! Kind of made me feel like I’m in a retro Chinese movie.
When I first read the menu, I knew this isn’t some westernized dim sum restaurant made to fit the London culture, looked pretty authentic to me.
The variety of dim sum is comparable to what I had back when I grew up in Hong Kong. The prices are reasonable, and the food was very well prepared and authentic despite the surprisingly well priced dim sum menu. Dishes are delicate and could tell that the ingredients are fresh. I would say it’s a bit better than what you get in Chinatown, as it felt like everything you ordered was freshly made from the kitchen. Generally all the dishes we ordered were made better than expected, delicious!!!
We were about to order peking duck, but was told that these orders need to be made 30 mins prior to dining, so do keep that in mind if you’re wishing to order some peking duck.
Was a little intimidated by the suits and ties dining there, (them boys DO know what they’re ordering though!) anyhow you could tell that their service lives up to their business diners, as the place seemed pretty clean.
Oh, do make a booking as lunch time is pretty packed! Would def come back again!

Great décor and in a wonderful location. Perfect for a quick lunch whilst shopping in the west end.
The service was polite but less efficient than other dim sum restaurants I’ve been to. The portions of dim sum also a fair bit smaller too than others but pricing is acceptable given the location.
On taste, there wasn’t anything bad, but nothing really stood out either. In essence this is standard quality dim sum suitably priced in a nice area. I would recommend heading a few minutes to Chinatown where there is a lot more choice and some real standout places suitably rated on Unilocal

The staff were very polite upon arrival and throughout the evening.
Well I guess that due to its location (Mayfair) the pricing of its dishes is reflected in this. I’m not saying it is over priced but the food, whilst plentiful, is ok, some dishes were a bit salty, perhaps it is my taste buds… but there was 11 of us and several of us found this.
We had a private room with two tables in it which could probably hold 12 people each. The service received was good although waiting staff seem unable to make a decision and they have to go and get a manager to deal with your request. the set menus offer a good variety of dishes and you really get plenty of food!
Even with the eleven of us we had left overs which they were more than happy to box up for us to take away at the end. Drinks variety is good and they have a range of alcoholic and non alcoholic cocktails. Once your food arrives if you have the duck they offer to wrap it for you! I have never heard of this service before but we declined as making the wraps is part of the eating experience… well I think so! The lobster was good althoughI’m not sure that it was enough for the six people it was meant to feed.
so overall the food was ok plentiful not mind blowing but it hit the spot. The only irritant about the whole experience was when the bill came. Now we had booked a private room which we were charged for the privilege. The bill included a service charge of 15% but they had put the room charge in the bill which meant we were paying twice for the room. (Well not totally paying the full price for the room twice but you get what I mean) so a manager was summoned and a ten minute conversation was had and in fairness to him he took the cost of the room off the bill which appeased everyone.
So would i eat here again… yeah I would it was an ok experience overall and the food was ok and plentiful.
P. S. if you are driving up on a Saturday evening there are some spots with yellow lines around which you can park on after 6.30pm. Well I did and I did not get a ticket!!!

Even from the outside, straight away you sense a high degree ofclassiness that is missing in most Chinese restaurants, apart from the top Yauatcha or Hakkasan. Perhaps it was the luxurious sofas in the waiting area, or the modern high class bar behind it, but something about the entrance of this restaurant screamed sophistication.
The rest of the place did not disappoint either, with tables spaced well apart (the same cannot be said of Chinatown restaurants), very conducive for a quiet lunch or dinner.
The dim sum menu range was quite extensive, with all the classics like har gau and siew mai, char siu bun to cheung fun, as well as some unique dishes. We ordered a range of staple dim sum dishes, and were not disappointed with the quality. It was good dim sum that tasted freshly made and with quality ingredients, with the key being that after the meal neither of us ended up with dry mouth, which is a common affliction in cheaper Chinese restaurants where they use MSG and flavour enhancers in the food.