How hot pot works in Chinatown, and what to order
Pick a broth, mix a sauce, cook it yourself: a guide to hot pot in and around Gerrard Street, and what to put in the pot.
By Only Soho Editorial
Hot pot is dinner with a job attached. A pot of broth simmers at the table and you cook everything in it yourself. Chinatown, between Soho and Leicester Square, is where London does it best, and Hot Dinners notes that hot pot restaurants have been piling into the area.
How hot pot works
According to Chinatown London, the idea is thinly sliced meats, seafood, tofu, noodles and vegetables dipped in a flavourful broth and paired with sauces. You can go fiery Sichuan or milder.
The order of play is simple: choose a broth, mix a dipping sauce, then add ingredients and a noodle. Many tables are split in two, so two broths can share one table: one for the brave, one for everyone else.
The styles to know
- Sichuan: spicy and numbing. The one to choose if you want your lips to tingle.
- Chaoshan (Teochew): simple, clear beef broths and fresh beef.
- Cantonese: big shared cauldrons, built for a crowd.
Where to go
Haidilao, Coventry Street
A short walk from Gerrard Street rather than on it, in the Trocadero (Unit 4/5, Coventry Street), nearest tube Piccadilly Circus. Hot Dinners describes it as the most popular hot pot chain in China, founded in 1994. It is a performance: noodle-pulling, aproned servers and manicures while you wait, as Corner describes it. Order the Golden Chicken and Fish Maw broth and drink the soup first, then add lamb shoulder and golden egg dumplings. OpenTable puts a meal in a £26 to £40 band. Go on the early side if you want to be seated without a long wait.
Little Lamb, 72 Shaftesbury Avenue
Chinatown London calls it a small-but-sweet eatery and a traditional go-to for hot pot on a budget. Tripadvisor reviewers describe Mongolian-style hot pot here. Come for a relaxed, no-frills table and keep the order modest: a broth, a plate of sliced meat, some greens.
Gerrard Street, the street to walk
Chinatown covers Gerrard Street, Wardour Street, Rupert Street, Lisle Street and the lanes around them, and the area took its present shape from the 1970s. Wikipedia notes that the Blitz damaged it heavily and that post-war Hong Kong immigration brought a wave of Chinese restaurants. It is worth walking Gerrard Street with an empty stomach and reading the menus in the windows before you commit.
Chinatown London has a hot pot guide that is a good place to compare what is on offer along the street, and the official site lists featured venues.
A few rules for the table
- Do not over-order. Plates arrive quickly and the pot keeps you eating. Order in rounds.
- Split the pot if the table is mixed on spice.
- Build the sauce before the food arrives, so you are not hunting for sesame paste while the beef overcooks.
- Stay on the quieter side of peak hour if you can: early evening is easier than half eight on a Friday.
Further afield
If Chinatown is full, Teo Hotpot in Bloomsbury does Chaoshan beef hot pot, with beef broth bases made only from beef bone marrow bones, according to Hot Dinners. It is outside Soho, but the pot is worth the detour.
For the full picture of how hot pot divides into Sichuan dry pot, Cantonese hot pot, Japanese shabu-shabu and all-you-can-eat, The Infatuation's London guide is a useful read. Start with the official Chinatown London hot pot guide, then book a table at Haidilao via OpenTable.
