Quality Chinese restaurant within the brand new Peninsula Hotel opposite Wellington Arch and Hyde Park Corner

Canton Blue is one of the higher end restaurants in the newly opened (Sep 2023) Peninsula Hotel in London, set on the south side of Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner. It is legendarily difficult to gain a reservation here and this, I found out, is in part that that many of the tables are required to be set aside for Hotel Guests, so if you are desperate to gain entry here, there is always that option – you just need to budget around £1,200 extra to stay there for one night to enable this. Or, at the stroke of midnight, exactly one month before your desired table is the time to book online – as I also found out the hard way on multiple checks. The bottom line is that it was worth the wait as very competent Chinese food which can range from approx £60 if three people just shared the £135 duck when all is said and done with a drink and service charge, although it is very easily arranged for that to be a higher figure if you stretch out to more, select dishes. Based on the dishes had on this first visit, I am very impressed with this lovely restaurant and would happily return in a heart beat. Further details as usual in the expansion button below.

Read full review

First off, you would be forgiven for thinking that Canton Blue is purely Cantonese cuisine, but is mixed with Peking influences and other regions of Chinese cooking. The staff could not have been more accommodating and friendly and were professional throughout, showing us the private dining areas that can be partitioned to hold two different parties on two large tables for 10 people each and with a large, lazy Susan table – depending on the booking day and time, these can be gained for approx a minimum £1000 spend (which is frankly quite fair based on the average price of a big party).

On this visit we started with some dim sum selection which included Har Gow (shrimp) Dumplings which held very good prawns and the fabled Xiao Long Bao which were utterly sublime. The key for Xiao Long Bao rests in the soup and the soup inside these (that is traditionally sucked out of the dim sum after biting a small hole) was absolutely spot on – deep, rich and packed with flavour with just the faintest amount of vinegar to give the desired ‘bite’. They were smaller than expected having had sampled a fair few in the streets of Beijing and Shanghai and that is the only complaint, in that the four of us could have easily had another plate of these (£4 each – one plate holds four at £16).

Everyone at the table could not resist the sight of BBQ pork on the menu and this was essentially Char Sui in the Canton Blue style which had much more glaze than traditionally served, but for a sweet-toothed Westerner, this was frankly no problem at all. The pork was utterly succulent and it was lovely to have the addition of yellow beans on the side as well, soft and sweet to accompany as a combination I have not had in a long time (yellow beans are so underutilised). All of this was merrily washed down with the house champagne from Deutz at £95 for the bottle, not an entirely unreasonable mark up for at 5* London hotel at around 2.5 times the retail price – it can be a lot worse!

The main event was the duck at £135 which I was delighted to see did not include any caviar to hike the price up to at least double this just for the sake of it, so bravo Canton Blue for NOT doing this – please continue this decision. The duck itself was, I am very pleased to say, superb. The skin was based very well, had delicious crunch, very good rendering of fat (not too much, not too little) and the quality of the duck itself, very good. It is also the little touches of the perfectly cut vegetables, including pepper and wafter thin-like pancakes that were skilful and really enjoyable along with a very good home made hoi sin sauce.

Once the pancake course had finished, you get a choice of how the remainder of the cut is prepared – either with Barbecue Sauce, Black Sesame or Wok-Fried with Vegetables, Pickled Radish; we chose the former with BBQ sauce and this was truly knock out. Just the slightest crunch of batter on top of the BBQ glazed duck and just enough for the four of us, even without the rice was a treat. All of this was washed down with a Chinese Riesling of all regions and was very good for the value it represented as well. China is becoming one of the largest wine producers in the world and a perfect choice to try as the quality line rises over the years but does not charge insane mark ups (yet) for not being as internationally renowned (yet) as old world wine. So this was another triumph of the meal.

By the time we had finished just the duck the four of us were sated and needed no dessert and all in the bill came to just over £150 per head but this was with a bottle of champagne and two bottles of white – had there been no alcohol, it would have been half that per person. This is much better value than I was expecting.

So for all the above reasons, I give this a very strong recommendation as a lovely place to have good Chinese food. Plan early (a rolling monthly online booking format is in place) and enjoy the absence of double bookings for each table as well (i.e. you will have your table for the full afternoon or evening).

Food Grade: 80%