Imperial Treasure Fine Chinese Cuisine London

Traditional Chinese New Year vibe

Spinach and mushrooms on tofu

Like many other Chinese restaurants in London, Imperial Treasure would offer a special Chinese New Year menu to celebrate the occasion. For very old school Chinese fine dining, besides China Tang at the Dorchester, I would say Imperial Treasure is the no2 choice. Its 2024 Chinese New Year menu was almost a copy and paste from 2023, as I recall I tried most of the dishes. Not an issue for me as long as it tastes great.

Salt and pepper squid

Slow braised pork belly with abalones

The Chilean sea bass was a real beast, a piece of chunky fish fillet steamed just right and dressed in a soy and spicy yellow bean sauce. Personally, I found the fish quality was good enough so a bold soy bean paste based sauce was not really needed, as the bold taste kind of dominated the mild sweetness of the fish. The braised pork belly was served with abalone, a dish I had from 2023 and it was just as good as I recalled it. The tender slow-cooked belly absorbed the flavour of the braising juice which contained pepper, soy, sugar, and five spices. The sticky rice was a letdown as the chewiness of the rice was too much for me to a level that was almost too hard to swallow, I suspect the rice was cooked for too long.

Glutinous rice with Chinese dried pork

Steamed seabass in soy and yellow bean paste

Maybe I have visited too many times and the place can no longer surprise me (11th visit) as all the dishes have been more or less the same for the last 5 years. There are some great dishes as well as some average ones, this would be the main issue for me as when I pay close to £50 for a dish, the average quality is not good enough. Therefore I would say depends on what you order, you can either get a top-notch meal or a painful expensive average meal.

Food 3.5/5


Average cost without drinks and services:
£100 (dinner)

9 Waterloo Pl, St. James's, London SW1Y 4BE

https://www.imperialtreasure.com/