Four Seasons Chinatown

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 most people come for the crisp skin and tender meat that have made it one of the most talked about duck addresses around. The kitchen turns out more than a hundred dishes across a single day, so the room is usually busy and the tables turn over quickly.

The duck is the reason for the queue. The skin is rendered until it crackles, the flesh stays soft, and it is seasoned with a house spice blend. The Financial Times has called the duck served here among the best in the world, a line that has followed the restaurant for years and still pulls diners in off the street. The ducks come from Silver Hill Farm in Ireland, where the grain fed birds roam free before they reach the kitchen.

Beyond the duck, the menu runs through familiar Cantonese ground: fish steamed with ginger and spring onions, prawn dumplings, barbecued spare ribs, and plenty of rice and noodle plates. Roast meats hang in the window, and many tables order the duck simply over rice for a quick lunch. The setting is plain and the service brisk, which is rather the point. This is a place built around the food.

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, 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, so walk ins should expect to wait during evenings and weekends.