Yauatcha Soho

Yauatcha opened in 2004 as Alan Yau’s follow-up to Hakkasan, and it has held a Michelin star for most of the time since, which for a dim sum restaurant operating at this volume is a genuinely difficult thing to sustain. The building on Broadwick Street splits into two distinct experiences: a ground-floor tea room and pâtisserie counter, all glass cabinets of French-influenced pastries, and a basement restaurant with fish tanks and a starlit ceiling that leans considerably more theatrical.

The dim sum itself is the reason to come. Scallop shui mai and venison puffs turn up repeatedly as reader and critic favourites, and the kitchen’s range across steamed, baked, grilled and fried preparations means a table of four can order fifteen dishes and still not cover the full menu. That breadth is also the main trap: over-ordering here is extremely easy and the bill climbs fast once you start adding dishes one at a time. The pâtisserie counter upstairs deserves its own visit entirely, French technique applied to often Asian-influenced flavours, and it is worth a stop even for anyone not staying for the full dim sum service downstairs.

Cantonese technique underpins most of the cooking, with a modern, slightly Westernised edge that has occasionally drawn criticism from purists looking for something closer to Hong Kong tradition. It is refined rather than rustic, and the room’s polish reflects that, right down to the tropical fish tanks and starlit ceiling that make the basement feel considerably more nocturnal than the bright tea room above it.

Consistency is the honest weak point flagged across reviews: on a good night this is genuinely excellent, precise and well-timed, but on a busy one the pace can slip and dishes arrive unevenly spaced. Booking ahead, particularly for the basement dining room on a weekend, is close to essential. Cocktails and a serious tea list both feature too, in keeping with a restaurant that clearly wants to be judged as more than just a dim sum stop, and more than two decades in it remains one of the genuine benchmarks for Chinese fine dining in the capital, a rare case of a restaurant outlasting the hype that greeted its opening.