Four Seasons Chinatown

Roast duck on Gerrard Street

Four Seasons Chinatown is a Cantonese restaurant at 12 Gerrard Street, in Soho's Chinatown. It is best known for Hong Kong style roast duck, and a visitor would go for the crisp skin and tender meat that have made it one of the most talked about duck addresses in the area. The kitchen serves more than one hundred dishes across a single day, so the room is usually busy and the turnover quick.

The duck is the reason most people queue. The skin is rendered until it crackles, the flesh stays soft, and the meat is seasoned with a house spice blend. The Financial Times has described the duck served here as among the best in the world, a claim that has followed the restaurant for years and still draws diners off the street.

What Four Seasons Chinatown serves

Four Seasons sources its ducks from Silver Hill Farm in Ireland, where the grain fed birds are free roaming before they reach the kitchen. Beyond the signature duck, the menu runs through familiar Cantonese ground: fish steamed with ginger and spring onions, prawn dumplings, barbecued spare ribs, and a wide range of rice and noodle plates. Roast meats hang in the window, and many tables order the duck served simply over rice as a quick lunch.

The setting is plain and the service is brisk rather than fussy. This is a place built around the food rather than the room, which is part of why it has held its reputation among regulars and visitors to Chinatown alike.

Visiting on Gerrard Street

The restaurant sits on the pedestrianised stretch of Gerrard Street, the main spine of Soho's Chinatown, a short walk from Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus underground stations. It opens from midday through to late evening through the week, with slightly later closing on Friday and Saturday and an earlier start on Sunday. The address is 12 Gerrard Street, London W1D 5PR, and the restaurant can be reached on 020 7494 0870.

Tables are not always easy to come by at peak times, and walk ins should expect to wait during evenings and weekends. For anyone exploring the restaurants of Four Seasons Chinatown's home street, it remains a fixed point on any Cantonese food tour of the area.