Hutong

Sky high Chinese fine dining

Sautéed cuttlefish with gong vegetable, enoki mushroom and Sichuan chilli

Located in the tallest building in London, Hutong is a fine dining Chinese food sitting close to the top of the building. Hutong is part of the Aqua Restaurant Group, which owned a collection of high-end restaurants back in Hong Kong. Hutong branded itself as a fine dining Chinese restaurant specializing in Northern Chinese cuisine, after checking the menu, however, most dishes appear to be from the Canton and Sichuan region. In my typical fashion, I visited Hutong for its more affordable lunch menu at £35, before deciding if it is worth the dosh to revisit again for its more expensive a la carte menu, with some dishes costing around the £40 mark.

Dim sum selection

Wok-fried pak choi, garlic sauce

The lunch menu contained 4 courses, starting off with a basket of dim sum. The XO sauce crystal prawn dumpling was solid, the prawn was nicely seasoned and I enjoyed the savory and seafood aroma from the XO sauce. On the other hand, the mushroom and cabbage dumpling were poor, the filling was overcooked, very mushy and lacked any taste. The crispy beef tenderloin with bell peppers was pleasant but really nothing special, fairly basic and the quality is similar to what you would find in China Town. Funny enough, the most enjoyable dish for me was the wok-fried pak choi with garlic sauce, the root of the pak choi had the perfect moist texture and the balance of the ginger and garlic, combing with the wok aroma, was just perfect.

Beef tenderloin, bell peppers, dried garlic, black bean

Pickled vegetable fried rice

Mango pudding with fruit salsa

The dangerous of dining at a posh restaurant in a tall building is that you usually ended up paying for the good view but not the food, and that is exactly what happened to me at Hutong. Some decent dishes but nothing really command the sky-high price that is charging. I can easily have 2 solid Chinese meal in China Town for the £45 I paid for my set lunch at Hutong, so I won't go anywhere near Hutong again. Simply put, just the good view alone is not going to be enough.

Food 2.5/5


What I paid: 
£45 per head

Average cost without drinks and services:
Lunch menu £35
A la carte: £60

33, The Shard, 31 St Thomas St, London SE1 9RY

https://www.hutong.co.uk/