Wok and roll: The rise, fall and reinvention of Chinese cuisine in London
- sunangel15
- Oct 29
- 11 min read
Written as the Master's final project in June 2025
“I don’t know what kind of Chinese noodles it is…we just saw it on Instagram. I like Chinese food - wonton noodles, prawn noodles – I like noodles.” Lisa, a 20-year-old from Birmingham, said while queuing for Noodle Inn, one of the most viral Chinese restaurants in London. With a massive queue occupying the whole street, Noodle Inn does not sell the Cantonese noodles that Lisa and most British people are familiar with. Instead, it specialises in thick hand-pulled noodles from Xi’an, a North-central Chinese city.
While the Instagram reel of Noodle Inn has hit 16m views, the latest government data shows that British consumption of Chinese food has fallen to a historic low. According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, an average Brit ate 7g of Chinese food outside the home a week in 2023, half of that before COVID. The Telegraph describes it as “Britain los[ing] appetite for Chinese restaurants”.
Despite the data, millions of people are interested in trying Chinese food they do not know about. What is going on with Chinese cuisine in Britain, and how has London’s Chinese food scene evolved?
Diversification
Historically, Chinese food is one of the first foreign cuisines to become established in Britain. When Britain started maritime trade with China in the 1600s, Chinese people, mainly from Southern China and Hong Kong known as Canton, came to Britain. Working as sailors, labourers and merchants, they lived in dock areas like Limehouse. Most Chinese immigrants before the 21st century were from Canton, so most Chinese restaurants in London used to serve localised Cantonese food like spring rolls and sweet and sour chicken.
Fast forward to today, Cantonese cuisine no longer dominates London’s Chinese food scene. “Definitely there has been a huge change since I became a restaurant journalist in 2009,” says Joe Lutrario, deputy editor of Restaurant magazine. “A fundamental change is that in London, Cantonese restaurants are steadily replaced by those serving other types of Chinese food.”
The diversification and specialisation of regional cuisine is the most prominent trend in London’s Chinese restaurants since 2010. Among the top 20 ‘Chinese restaurants’ in London on Google Maps, only eight serve Cantonese dishes. Nearly all Szechuan (a Southwestern Chinese province) restaurants opened after 2010, and all Xi’an’s opened after 2014. All restaurants for Yunnan food, another Southwestern Chinese province, opened in 2023.
John Li, Dumpling Shack’s owner, is in the front row witnessing this change. Dumpling Shack is a multi-brand business selling Shanghainese dumplings and Szechuan noodles at Old Spitalfields Market and Hackney. He recalls that when he opened the first dumplings stall at Hackney’s Broadway Market in 2014, “no one was selling it”. He is also one of the first to serve Szechuan hand-pulled noodles when he opened the noodle stall in 2019. However, Szechuan and Xi’an hand-pulled noodles have become the most viral Chinese food in London since late 2024.
New Chinese businesses
Both Li and Lutrario attribute the specialisation of Chinese cuisine to the influx of Chinese food franchises in Britain. Lutrario explains: “Cantonese restaurants in the UK are traditionally family-owned, but now more Chinese brands are expanding internationally.” Haidilao, the world's largest hotpot chain, is a case in point. Founded in Szechuan in 1994, it now operates over 430 stores in China and 466 worldwide. Following its first London restaurant in Piccadilly Circus in 2018 and the second in 2020, it arrived in Birmingham in 2021. The global expansion drove its net profit to $650m last year.
Since 2022, many other Chinese brands have followed suit. Zhangliang Malatang, another hotpot brand with 5,800 stores worldwide, made its London debut in 2022. It will expand to Glasgow this year. JWD Lamian, which has been making Lanzhou noodles in China since 2010, entered London with a two-storey store near Liverpool Street. In one Instagram reel, its thick hand-pulled noodles and massive short ribs have attracted 1.1m views. These businesses specialise in food from cities in mainland China, bringing diverse Chinese flavours to London.
Besides the giant capitals, independent businesses have introduced regional Chinese cuisine to London. In 2021, 124 thousand Chinese nationals resided in the UK, 20% higher than in 2008. Not only has the number increased, but their demographic profile has also changed. China’s economic boom since the 1980s has enabled those from mainland China, the area except Hong Kong, to work and study in the UK. This new wave of immigrants tends to be more skilled and well off, so they do not open a takeaway just to make a living. They wish to promote their home culinary culture. They do not mind challenging British customers’ appetite.
Tim Pan, originally from the Northwest Chinese province of Xinjiang, opened the Xinjiang restaurant Lao Dao in Southwark in 2023. He had worked in another Chinese restaurant for 10 years, but he started his own because he wanted to promote Xinjiang cuisine. “I never fear (that local customers dislike my food) and localise my menu. We want to show the most authentic flavour and let local British people learn about different Chinese cultures.”
Passion is important, but the change in British customers’ appetite also helps. Pan observes that they are now more willing to try unfamiliar Chinese food. He recalls: “10 years ago, customers would criticise whether it was a Chinese restaurant if there was no egg fried rice and sweet and sour chicken. Now they know there are many different Chinese foods…some of my customers curiously ask about the Xinjiang cuisine.”
Social Media
Social media plays a key role in stimulating locals’ curiosity in different Chinese cuisines. Patty, a London-based food influencer with over 30 thousand Instagram followers, notices that many of her followers are interested in alternative Chinese foods because of social media trends. “They watched my videos, shared with friends, asked questions, and got more interested,” she says. “People in London don’t have loyalty to restaurants anymore. They want to try what is viral to stay in conversation.” She then gives the example of @Eatingwithtod – each video from this account has been viewed by at least 1m people on Instagram. The influencer usually slurps the noodles and shows how sauces drip down his hand, stimulating the viewers’ sensations. Noodle Inn also went viral after he described it as “the best noodles in London” in a 16m-view reel.
As Patty adds, social media explains the fame of Noodle Inn. On a Saturday afternoon, the queue for it occupied the whole street. Most people visited the shop simply out of curiosity and its fame online. Amelia, at the end of the queue, wanted to see “what the craze is all about”. Peter came here for the same reason. When asked if he knew what kind of Chinese cuisine it served, he said: “I have lived in Beijing for six years. It is biang biang noodles, but I don’t know…” He looked at the menu description and continued: “Oh, it is Northwest Chinese cuisine”.
Newly opened Chinese restaurants know the power of social media, so they are proactive in digital marketing. For example, The Eight, a Hong Kong-style restaurant opening in Chinatown in 2022, ran an Instagram giveaway in April. The first person who screenshotted its profile when it hit 8,888 followers could win a £100 voucher. Many restaurants also collaborate for promotion with influencers like Yeshy behind @bonappetit.x, who says most of her recent PR invites are from Chinese restaurants.
Having run a Chinese food business for over a decade, Li says he and his team have to be more “aggressive” in social media marketing to stand out. He still remembers how his dumpling first went popular when someone just posted its picture on Instagram. “It doesn’t work like this anymore. Now you must be eye-catching and creative. We just hired our social media manager for the first time, and we are exploring Chinese social media like Xiaohongshu.”
Xiaohongshu, known as ‘Red Note’ in English, is the most popular social media platform among overseas Chinese students. In the past ten years, the number of Chinese students in the UK has nearly tripled. With around 151,690 in the UK, they make up the largest group of international students. The expansion of students, who long for authentic home flavours and have a strong spending power, has driven Chinese food businesses to open in London. Taking Aldgate, where eight student accommodation halls are located, as an example, there are 16 Chinese restaurants within a 20-minute walking distance. Eleven of them opened after 2021.
As Dumpling Shack is right next to the Aldgate battlefield, Li feels pressured by the competition. He says: “We try to improve our food quality…but it has become harder and harder [to stand out]. It has become way more competitive.”
High-end Chinese restaurants
In contrast, some do not feel threatened. Andrew Kwok, director at the Good Earth restaurants, says: “The new Chinese restaurants do not bring competition to us. Our target audience and services are so different.”
The Good Earth is a family-owned group with three full-service Chinese restaurants and four takeaway spots in London. Founded in 1979 by Holland Kwok, who moved to the UK from Hong Kong in 1957, it serves refined Cantonese classics like shredded beef and dover sole clay pot in a mid-to-premium price range. Unlike the new Chinese restaurants targeting young people, its customers would pay £65 for lobster noodles and dine for over two hours.
Although Kwok feels unaffected by the new Chinese restaurants, he notices that many luxury Cantonese restaurants have closed. He says: “We used to have a lot of competitors, but now only legacy restaurant groups like Hunan and Royal China are left. All restaurants in Chinatown have changed their management. Nobody does high-end Cantonese cuisine now.”
He believes such a decline was due to several socio-economic factors. From a social perspective, there is a “natural progression” that after the old Chinese chefs retired, most of their children are reluctant to take up the family business and enter the hospitality industry. Economically, the Labour government’s tax policies and cost-of-living crisis have increased the overheads of running a business. Restaurants can only earn a little marginal profit, so people are less willing to start one.
To cope with these challenges, Kwok constantly renews the business model. For instance, he established a central kitchen that makes sauces and dumplings for all branches. It deskills the production process, reduces food preparation time and cuts costs in general. Despite the changes in the whole restaurant landscape, he is quite confident in his business. He says: “The restaurant’s location is vital. Most people living here (Wandsworth) are wealthy families, so they are willing to spend money. Many of our loyal customers come here with their grandkids, so our regulars keep returning across generations. We are not afraid of losing customers – they feel like home here.”
Also confident in his food’s quality, he adds: “If they always have our food, they will not eat somewhere else.”
Chinese takeaways
“The business model of Chinese takeaways is miles away from mine…if I took my parents into my kitchen, they would not understand any of these,” Li says while talking about his parents, who had run a Chinese takeaway for decades.
The old-school Chinese takeaway shops are in a different world. Emerging across Britain in the mid-20th century, they are tucked into neighbourhood corners. They usually look similar, with simple signage with bold lettering, a splendid menu taped on the window, and a modest interior with a few plastic chairs for waiting. They serve a huge range of British Chinese food, notably chicken balls and chow mein.
While there is no record of the number of Chinese takeaways, most restaurant owners and food journalists agree that they are declining. There are different reasons, including the owners’ children not taking over the businesses, the increasing awareness of MSG, and the lack of interest among young British people.
Do those running a takeaway shop agree that it is declining?
“There are fewer takeaways. Some close and never open again,” says Alice, who has been running Happy Valley in Stoke Newington for 20 years. She does not know whether the Chinese takeaway industry is falling, but she is sure that she has not lost customers. She believes that Chinese takeaway is always needed and loved by busy urban dwellers as it is much cheaper than restaurants with larger portions.
“My business is okay. I work from 11am to 10pm. It’s just myself and I don’t recruit anyone, so the cost is low. It’s fine as long as I can survive – how much do I need to earn?” says Alice. Even though her daughter, who just turned 18, no longer helps in the kitchen, she says indifferently: “I can survive anyway.”
Wendy, owner of China’s Taste in Highbury, has a similar view on her business. “Our revenue is always similar – nothing challenging,” she says. Unlike other Chinese restaurant owners, she is uninterested in sharing her stories. “You are definitely doing market research. Which companies are you representing? Uber Eat?”
The decline of traditional Chinese takeaway is not necessarily because of the loss of public interest, but rather their internal operational problems like nobody taking over the businesses. It is also about the culture and mindset of the last-generation Chinese. As Angela Hui, the most well-known food journalist for Chinese cuisine who grew up in a takeaway herself, described, most takeaway owners just humbly want to make a living. They have no attempt to catch up with the latest business trends, expand their businesses or maximise profits.
Will social media change the future of these old businesses? Since last August, a Tiktok video of Tao’s Chopstick in Holloway’s Nags Head Market has attracted 15.7m views. In South London, Chinese Food House in Broadway Tooting Market has gone viral with a 2.1m-viewed video too. Both videos are POV (point of view) videos of the owners gently asking what the customer wants and stuffing the bowl with chicken. Then, the customer takes the nearly overflowing bowl happily.
While the owners of both takeaways refused to be interviewed, they do not make the videos. Instead, they are produced by the same team of people – Blaze Marketing Agency. Both Nags Head Market and Broadway Tooting Market hire it to produce content for their Instagram and Tiktok pages.
Serena Grant, founder and manager of Blaze Marketing Agency, says she and her team did not reference other Chinese restaurants’ social media campaigns. As traders in these markets serve affordable food to the local community, they try to use POV videos to highlight the sense of “authenticity” – the kindness of the takeaway ladies and Londoners’ longing for a good deal.
She admits that it is not easy to work with the owners. “The owner at Nags Head market has gone viral countless times. She is very aware of the advantages of social media, so she is a lot more interested in it. It is harder to work with the Broadway Market one. They do not always sign up to the filming, but it is just how the old generation reacts to social media. They are not on it themselves, so they are not sure about it.”
It is unknown whether more Chinese takeaways will market themselves on social media. However, as some of them need to work with their landlords or external agencies, they need to change and keep up with new social trends. Traditional Chinese takeaways are also diversifying, depending on the locations and ownership. They are no longer living in their isolated bubble.
Decline or reform?
Back to the start, is the Chinese restaurant declining in the UK as the government data suggests?
At the end of the day, it is just a set of numbers calculated based on the respondents’ measurements and spending on food. Beyond the cold data, the actual restaurant scene in London is diversifying. The menu, source of capital, customers’ appetite, business models, and marketing strategies have all diversified. From inventing salt and pepper chips to playing with social media, they are always trying to adapt to the ever-changing business environment.
“That’s what I love about running a business,” says Li, outside of his busy stall at the Old Spitalfields Market. “It is challenging and not the easiest way to make money, but we can always change and try new things. I don’t want to be beaten by others. It can be tough, but it is what running a food business in London is like.”
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