Five of Edinburgh's Best Chinese Restaurants

Happy New Year! We know what you're thinking, and no, you have not stepped into a Groundhog Day-style loop of the first four weeks of the year. While the Gregorian calendar turned onto a new page on 1 January, Lunar or Chinese New Year comes slightly later. Chinese New Year falls on 8 February this year, kicking off The Year of the Monkey – to help celebrate the occasion, we've picked out a few of Edinburgh's best Chinese restaurants, each presenting a regional variant from across the country and surrounds. And don't worry Glaswegians, we haven't forgotten about you – here's our pick of five of our Glasgow favourites.

Chop Chop

248 Haymarket Ter, Edinburgh

Chop Chop is as much of an Edinburgh institution as grumbling about trams, grumbling about Glasgow’s stranglehold on live music, or grumbling about tourists walking around ‘enjoying themselves’. Thankfully, the Haymarket restaurant’s dumplings can put a smile on even the most misanthropic of faces. The little bundles of joy are available all day long, with Chop Chop’s lunch buffet offering the ideal chance to work your way through the range of north-east Chinese dishes on offer. An unpretentious favourite of young and old, with an exterior so bright you literally couldn’t miss it if you tried.

Stack Dim Sum Bar

42 Dalmeny St, Edinburgh

Trying new things can be a dangerous game – there's always the chance you'll misread the menu or misremember your own tastes, so it's good to hedge your bets sometimes. Stack Dim Sum Bar allows you to try loads of different flavours, tastes and textures, with the added bonus of everything being delicious. Pull up a pew in the modest space off Leith Walk, surround yourself with dim sum, and prepare for an epic journey. 

Wing Sing Inn

147 Dundee St, Edinburgh

Try the lung. Seriously, try the sheeps' lung, served in a hot, sweet chilli oil, just one of the more unusual delights to be found at Wing Sing Inn in Fountainbridge. While the labyrinthine northern Chinese menu takes no prisoners, the staff are more than happy to steer you in the right direction should you be unsure of anything. Gather the biggest dining crew you can, pick a couple of dishes each, stick them all on the enormous lazy susan in the centre of the table and tuck in.

Kweilin

21 Dundas St, Edinburgh

Kweilin serve up Cantonese classics in a refined environment, making it ideal for those occasions on which you fancy a swish setting for your dinner. There's nothing like a restaurant set in a series of Georgian dining rooms to remind you that you're still in Edinburgh, but the food will have your tastebuds thinking otherwise.

Chatime

14 Bank St, Edinburgh

A Taiwanese treat, bubble tea is a far cry from your typical office cup of hot brown liquid. Served hot or cold, in fruit- or milk-based varieties, you'll know a bubble tea from the tapioca pearls or juice-filled 'boba' sitting in the bottom of the cup. Chatime at the top of the Mound serve up dozens of varieties of the drink and a host of other regional beverages; Taiwanese-style bubble tea can also be found at Lian Pu, just off Nicholson Street, or at frozen yoghurt emporium Frisky's branches on Lothian Road and Forrest Road.