As a fussy Scottish child in the early 90s, raised on the buckle of the country’s Central Belt, there were few more significant treats than being driven to Edinburgh for a Chinese meal. In what’s probably my earliest memory of being in a restaurant, I’d pick at the plainest dishes Dragon Peril, a classically Cantonese outpost in the city centre, had to offer, eating a raft of prawn crackers and an occasional crispy duck pancake, while my parents would venture slightly deeper and more adventurously into the menu. The waitstaff would fawn over me and offer up orange slices with the bill, which I’d refuse, and we’d drive home.
No cuisine can take more credit for eroding that juvenile pickiness than Cantonese cooking. The sweet, sticky carrots in Loon Fung’s crispy shredded beef, and the broccoli in their beggar’s chicken revealed that vegetables could, in fact, be delicious. Beyond fish and chips, a world of seafood featuring prawns and monkfish was revealed, and a curtain was drawn back on the wondrous, dumpling-laden majesty of dim sum. It was utterly transformative, and fuelled a lifelong enthusiasm that’s been indulged further with trips to Shanghai, Suzhou, Beijing and Hong Kong, always with one eye on the next meal.
Back home, Dragon Peril vanished so long ago that its existence is unknown to the internet, while Loon Fung was shuttered in 2025, replaced by a Vietnamese restaurant. A similar fate befell Bruntsfield’s Lee On, and after over five decades of service, Stockbridge’s Ping On closed in 2022, reborn as the excellent Italian trattoria, Sotto. The fading presence of these older Cantonese restaurants, so formative in pushing the cuisine into Scotland’s consciousness, is perhaps unsurprising, given generations have passed since their founders arrived in the UK. While the collective appetite for that food surely remains, their descendants have likely found their own professional enthusiasms outside of the restaurant industry.
Thankfully, while these older stars were waning, a new generation of Chinese dining took root and blossomed, fuelled not only by a drive to bring innovative, exciting food to Scotland, but by the booming demand for a taste of home. With a substantial and thriving East Asian student population in the capital, the Edinburgh market for authentic, regional cooking from across China exploded. Newington, tucked close to the university and student housing, rapidly became Edinburgh’s Chinatown, effectively through osmosis.
A walk southward from Chambers Street in 2026 will take you past no fewer than a dozen steamy-windowed, resolutely casual Chinese diners, each with their own take on a vast gamut of regional styles, and myriad photographs to help direct the unfamiliar. While Guangdong and Hong Kong's Cantonese influence is still woven throughout many menus, you’ll now find dishes from across the Eight Great Cuisines and beyond. Though there remains no privilege quite like eating a dish in the country where it was born, there’s an immense joy to be found in such a staggering selection being crammed into a Scottish city. That choosy child’s tastebuds wouldn’t know what had hit them.
Where to eat
Imperial Palace
The oldest of the recommendations on here, and the only one not located on Edinburgh’s southside, Imperial Palace opened a relative lifetime ago in 2009, parked on top of the city’s original Asian supermarket. With a main menu dominated by Cantonese classics, the biggest draw is a daytime dim sum card that crams in a massive array of dumplings, cheung fun and roast meats. One to enjoy on a Saturday with a big group of pals.
36 Inglis Green Road, Edinburgh EH14 2ER | imperialpalacescotland.co.uk
Xuzhou Ground Pot
Named for the Jiangsu dì guō dishes championed by this cosy eatery, their signature dish is a rich meat stew, loaded with a spectacularly aromatic blend of Sichuan peppercorns, chilli and star anise and crowned with pleasantly leathery mian bing. The rest of the menu packs a punch, with a great range of dry pot dishes, noodles and other potent Sichuan options.
41-42 W Preston Street, Edinburgh EH8 9PY
Taste of Home
One of the many small restaurants that line Nicolson Street, Taste of Home has one of the most diverse selections of Chinese cooking in town. After some welcoming morsels of delightfully spiced, briny pickled seaweed and peanuts, dishes include Xinjiang spicy chicken, served with flat noodles and loaded with musky, dry chilli heat, Hunan braised pork, and truly exceptional staples such as Sichuan dry fried green beans.
53 Clerk Street, Newington, Edinburgh EH8 9JQ | tasteofhomeedinburgh.co.uk
Noodles Home
Hidden up a flight of stairs opposite the Festival Theatre, this is where to find Edinburgh’s best noodles. Made on site, with the happy slap of their production audible in the dining room, their hand-cut and hand-pulled creations slide perfectly into fragrant, spicy bowls of Chongqing noodles, as well as Lanzhou ramen with a lighter, clearer broth. Outside of soups, their doughy expertise extends to delightfully fiery, oily hongyou chaoshou, and vast sea bass platters for sharing.
14a Nicolson Street, Edinburgh EH8 9DH
握虎馋龙 Wò Hǔ Chán Lóng [Tiger Dragon]
Translating as Crouching Tiger, Greedy Dragon, this tiny, psychedelic counter-service joint on St Leonards Street focuses on China’s immensely popular street food. Their freshly made Tianjin jianbing come stuffed with a litany of fillings, including the prerequisite baocui or youtiao, sheafs or sticks of crispy, deep-fried dough, as well as li ji, sweet and sour pork, or ban jin, beef tendon, while the rou jia mo, literally ‘meat in a bun’, is packed with rich, earthy braised pork and sweet peppers. Ideal for a quick lunch or dinner on the hoof.
87 St. Leonard's Street, Edinburgh EH8 9QY
Words and images by James Porteous
