There is a moment, just past the porcelain doorway at Canton Blue, when you stop being in Belgravia. The floors beneath your feet are patterned with waves. The doors you walk through are modelled after those on a junk ship. The ceiling above glows with a celestial navigation map.
Canton Blue sits inside The Peninsula London, the Hong Kong hotel group’s first London address. Peninsula hotels have always been defined by their Cantonese restaurants, and this one honours that tradition while feeling entirely rooted in its London postcode. The design draws on the story of the Keying, a three-masted trading junk that sailed between China and Britain in the mid-1800s. You feel that maritime influence everywhere. In the main dining room, the low lighting and intimate booths have the quality of a ship’s quarters. The private booths are worth noting if you are coming with a small group. Step up into the private dining spaces and the sensation deepens. The Music Room, lined with instruments behind glass, gives the feel of being aboard a vessel looking out to sea.
We started with dim sum, which is the right way to begin here. There is a dedicated dim sum chef whose work is precise and delicate. The xiao long bao were some of the best I have had in London, beautifully made with the pleating almost impossibly neat. And the steamed crab and cuttlefish dumplings were gorgeous. Dim sum is one of those things where the difference between good and great is entirely in the hands, and you can sense the skill here.
But the real event at Canton Blue is the Peking duck, and this is the thing I keep telling everyone about. Ours arrived whole, beautifully lacquered, and was carved tableside with the kind of ceremony that reflects a genuine investment in the craft. Every member of the team learns to carve a duck. Each person who works here practises on three to four birds. I thought that was such a cool detail, and it shows. The skin was perfectly crisp, served first with pancakes and plum sauce. For the second course you choose how you want the rest of the meat prepared. We went with stir-fried with vegetables, which felt lighter and more interesting than the deep-fried option. Both halves of the duck were perfectly balanced, neither upstaging the other. I would go back for the duck alone.
The cocktails were a pleasant surprise. Well balanced and interesting without being fussy, which is harder to get right than most bars seem to think. And the wine list offered something we had not tried before: Chinese wine. Our sommelier suggested it and I am glad we trusted him. It was genuinely good, complex enough to hold its own alongside the Cantonese flavours. I love when someone suggests something you would not have picked yourself and it ends up being a highlight.
Our son finished with a lemon sorbetto, which felt like the right way to end on a simple note.
One more thing, because nobody ever talks about it: the toilets at Canton Blue are Toto washlets and the bathrooms are luxurious, which really speaks to the kind of place it is.
Canton Blue is not trying to be the trendiest Chinese restaurant in London. It is trying to be the most polished and considered one, and it is exactly the kind of place I want to share with you.
Canton Blue, The Peninsula London, 1 Grosvenor Place, London SW1X 7HJ. peninsula.com*
Note: The Peninsula London provided support for the reporting of this story.