F10 - Chinatown - What to See and Where to Eat and Drink (0.7 km)
- philip carey
- Jul 11, 2023
- 10 min read
Updated: Dec 22, 2024
Start at Leicester Square Station
Finish at Leicester Square Station
THE EXPERIENCE
Chinatown is a thriving hub of Oriental cuisine and entertainment.
Chinatown is the heart of London's West End entertainment area, nestling between Covent Garden, Leicester Square and Soho. It is an area of bright lights, delicious smells, and Chinese culture lined with beautiful red hanging lanterns. This circular 0.7 Km eat, drink and be merry route explores all it has to offer along its main streets – Newport Place, Gerrard Street, Wardour Street and Lisle Street.
It is great for bright lights, atmosphere, crowds, everything Chinese and lots of places to eat, drink and be merry.
BEST TIME
Morning - Most of the route will be reasonably quiet in the morning. The best time to explore the route is early morning when the lighting is at its best and few people are around. It is also a great way to discover places to have a Chinese breakfast.
Day -This route will get busier during the day, and there are plenty of places to stop for a light snack or a long lunch.
Evenings - This route will get busy in the evening, and there are plenty of places to stop for a drink or an evening meal.
ROUTE OVERVIEW
This 0.7 km food, drink, and entertainment route starts outside Leicester Square Station on Charing Cross Road and heads north before taking the second small turn on the left into Chinatown's Newport Court that leads to the large square on Newport Place with its many restaurants. The route then bears left and does a square following the other main streets of Chinatown: Gerrard Street, Wardour Street, and Lisle Street. At the Hippodrome, it turns right into Leicester Square via Leicester Court before finishing off where it started at Leicester Square Station.
See the route at speed (1:20)
Use this to see what the route looks like as if you were doing it at speed and to make you more familiar with what you will see along the way.
GOOGLE AND STRAVA MAPS
Use the 'My Google Maps' to explore this route's venues. If you are using a mobile device, the map can help you find the start point for the route, navigate to places of interest, and show your position on the map.
What to see and places to eat, drink and be merry.
What to See List
1 Charing Cross Road
2 Newport Street and Newport Place – Chinatown
3 Gerard Street – Chinatown
4 Theatres along Shaftesbury Avenue
5 Soho
6 Wardour Street – Chinatown
7 Chinatown Gate, W Hotel and M&M – Chinatown
8 Lisle Street – Chinatown
9 Leicester Square Cinemas
10 St Martin’s Lane, Goodwin Court, and Cecil Court
Chinatown Route - Pubs and Bars
There are not many in this area, and they are spread out along the route, concentrating on the edges of Chinatown. However, there are plenty in neighbouring Soho, Leicester Square and St Giles.
Here is a listing of nearby pubs and bars
Pubs in and around Chinatown
The Imperial – 5 Leicester St
Slug and Lettuce – (Sports bar and cocktails) – 5 Lisle St
De Hems Dutch Café Bar – 11 Macclesfield St
Waxy’s Little Sister – Irish bar Live music 20 Wardour St
O’Neills 33-37 Wardour St (live music and sports)
Waxy o’ Connor 14-16 Rupert St
Pubs nearby in Soho
The French House – 49 Dean St – serves champaign and pints in ½’s
Golden Lion. 51 Dean St
White Horse 45 Rupert Street
The Lyric Soho 37 Great Windmill St – little Victorian pub
St James Tavern 45 Great Windmill St –
The Queen's Head Piccadilly – 15 Denman St
Pubs nearby in Square
Moon Under Water – JD Wetherspoon 28 Leicester Square
Joshua’s Tavern – Within the Londoner Hotel 38 Leicester Square
All Bar One – 46 Leicester Square
Bars in Chinatown
Peony Bar @ Opium /Jade Door Opium Bar – 15 Gerrard Street
Experimental Cocktail Club Chinatown 13a Gerrard Street
Ku Lounge 1 Newport Street
Nearby Bars
Icon Balcony Bar – 5-6 Leicester Square _part of Empire Casino
LSQ Rooftop Cocktail Bar and Kitchen
Heliot Cocktail Bar Hippodrome Leicester Square
Zoo Bar and Club – 13-17 Bear St – disco bar – 3.6 star
The Beau (Brummel) bar and restaurant – 3 Norris St -St James’s Market
Chinatown Route - Places to Eat
This will help you locate the numerous places to eat around Chinatown. These are spread out along the route, with a concentration of Chinese restaurants in Chinatown and plenty of other choices to the north in Soho. Use the food links below to find your perfect spot, with Chinatown as the search criteria.
Open Table London prides itself on bringing together people and the restaurants they love in the moments that matter, offering dining options, experiences, and offers.
The Fork—This is a Tripadvisor company that relies as much on its communities of users as its communities of restaurateurs. You can search by price, cuisine, rating, and special offers.
Hardens – This is probably the UK's most comprehensive independent restaurant guide, with reviews written by its members. It ranks each place by its food, services and ambience and has extensive search capabilities.
Design My Night This site is designed to help you discover and unlock secret, new and unique city experiences, from events to bars and restaurants, but it is also a site to help plan and book online. It has categories for restaurants, bars, pubs, clubs, and 'what's on'.
Afternoon tea This is an Afternoon Tea guide to help you find the 'perfect venue for afternoon tea' in London and the UK. It provides descriptions, offers, booking facilities and an extensive search option.
Chinatown Route - Things to Do
There are few entertainment venues in Chinatown but plenty on its edges around Leicester Square and Shaftesbury Avenue, including cinemas, theatres, casinos, exhibitions and art galleries.
Chinatown Theatres nearby
Leicester Square Theatre 6 Leicester Place
Sondheim Theatre 51 Shaftesbury Avenue
The Gielgud Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue
The Apollo Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue
Lyric Theatre 29 Shaftesbury Avenue
Piccadilly Theatre 16 Denman Street
Criterion Theatre 218 -223 Piccadilly
The Price of Wales Theatre Coventry Street
The Crystal Maze Live Experience – 22-32 Shaftesbury Avenue
The London Palladium 8 Argyll Street
The Comedy Store 5 Great Newport Street
BODY WORLDS London 1 Piccadilly Circus
Others
The Crystal Maze Live Experience – 22-32 Shaftesbury Avenue
The London Palladium 8 Argyll Street
The Comedy Store 5 Great Newport Street
BODY WORLDS London 1 Piccadilly Circus
Casinos nearby
Empire Casino 5-6 Leicester Square
The Hippodrome Casino Cranbourn Street
Grosvenor Casino – The Rialto – 3-4 Coventry Street
Cinema nearby
Cineworld Leicester Square – 5-6 Leicester Square
Vue Cinema London 3 Cranbourn Street Leicester Square
ODEON Luxe – 24-26 Leicester Square
ODEON Luxe West End – 38a Leicester Square
The Prince Charles Cinema – 7 Leicester Place
Picturehouse Central – Corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Windmill Street
Curzon Soho 99 Shaftesbury Avenue
Churches near Chinatown
St Anne’s Church 55 Dean St - 17th century Soho Parish Church
Our lady of the Assumption & St Gregory The Presbytery, 10 Warwick St
Church of Notre Dame de France RC 5 Leicester Place
Chinese Church in London – 166a Shaftesbury Ave
St Martin-in-the-Fields. Trafalgar Square
PHOTO GALLERY
This gallery provides a descriptive and visual reference to many sights along this route. Double-click to see the image in full size.
HISTORY & INTERESTING FACTS
Chinatown Facts
Historical Background:
The original Chinatown was located in Limehouse in the East End of London during the 19th century, catering primarily to Chinese sailors. However, it declined after World War II, and the community began to migrate to the current location in the 1950s and 1960s, transforming the area around Gerrard Street into the new Chinatown.
Architectural Features:
Chinatown is renowned for its traditional Chinese architectural elements, including pagoda-style gates, red lanterns, and dragons. The two large, ornate Chinese gates (paifang) at each end of Gerrard Street are iconic landmarks crafted using traditional Chinese techniques.
Culinary Hub:
The area is famous for its diverse array of Asian cuisine, featuring numerous Chinese restaurants, bakeries, and supermarkets. Visitors can enjoy a variety of regional Chinese dishes, from Cantonese dim sum to Sichuan spicy hotpots, as well as other Asian cuisines such as Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese.
Cultural Events:
Chinatown is the epicentre of Chinese New Year celebrations in London. The festivities include vibrant parades, lion and dragon dances, fireworks, and cultural performances. The area is decorated with red lanterns and banners, creating a festive atmosphere attracting thousands of visitors yearly.
Community and Businesses:
Beyond restaurants, Chinatown hosts a range of businesses, including herbal medicine shops, Chinese bakeries, souvenir stores, and calligraphy shops. It serves as a cultural and commercial hub for the Chinese community in London, providing a space where people can access traditional goods and services.
The Chinatown Gate - Wardour Street
The Chinatown Gate was installed in 2016 and marks the entry into Chinatown and its bustling restaurants and shop. The gate is the largest in the UK and the fourth in the area. It is of traditional design with three tiers and two pillars and is based on a unique Ching Dynasty design. One of the Chinese texts at the top of the gate translates to ‘Peace and Prosperity to Chinatown’. Chinatown moved here from Limehouse in the 1970s.
Public Art and Installations: Chinatown features several notable public art pieces and installations. Among them is the "Wishing Tree" on Macclesfield Street, where visitors can tie red ribbons with their wishes written on them. The tree is inspired by the traditional Chinese custom of wish-making
Nearby Areas
Coventry Street was constructed in 1681 for entertainment and retail purposes, and later acquired a shady reputation with its numerous gambling houses and a reputation for prostitution. This changed during the late 19th century with the establishment of several music hall outlets, including the London Pavilion and the Prince of Wales Theatre. In 1894, J. Lyons arrived at the Trocadero in Piccadilly and created a tea room, restaurant and dance hall for tea parties, and from 1909, J. Lyons developed into a chain of teashops in high streets across the UK.
Wardour Street runs between Leicester Square and Oxford Street through Chinatown and Shaftesbury Avenue. In the 20th century, it became a centre of the British film industry, with the big production and distribution companies having their headquarters in the street. It was also known for popular music venues and clubs such as The Flamingo and Marquee Club. Today, it has over 30 restaurants along its length and plenty of pubs and bars. This junction with Leicester Square has both the M&M’s World and Lego stores nearby, the iconic W hotel, and many famous cinemas and casinos
W Hotel Lego and M&M’s World
The W hotel was designed by architects Jestico + Whiles for the Starwood W hotel in 2011 and were built on the site of the Swiss Centre. They have ten floors, with two stories of high-quality retail space, a spa, and ten penthouse apartments with views across Leicester Square. W Hotels are renowned for their hip interior design, and this one has 192 rooms and several WOW suits. M&M’s World is their largest shop, spread over four floors
The LEGO Store in Leicester Square opened in 2016 and is their biggest store, spanning two floors, with 914 square metres of LEGO fun. It features a giant LEGO model of London’s famous clocktower, Big Ben. The name ‘LEGO’ is an abbreviation of the two Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”, and was created in 1932. The building was built in the 1920s and was formerly known as Communication House.
The Piccadilly Circus tube station was opened in 1906 on the Bakerloo line and the Piccadilly line in 1926. It is one of the few station entrances that are entirely below ground. The area has always been a busy junction for both traffic and people as it sits between the shopping areas to the north and west, Soho, and the entertainment areas to the north and east, and royalty and government to its south, which is why there are so many places around here to eat, drink and be merry.
Leicester Square Station is a popular meeting place near the main entertainment areas of Chinatown, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, St Giles, Soho, and Leicester Square. Leicester Square Station was opened in 1906 by the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway, who had initially thought of naming it Cranbourn Street. It was originally served by lifts but converted to escalators in 1920 to cope with the number of people using the station. It has the Hippodrome Casino on one side and the Wyndham’s Theatre on the other, and is well served by eat, drink and be merry places, especially towards Chinatown to the northwest and St Martins Lane and Covent Garden to the east
North West Leicester Square
Leicester Square was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields and was named after Leicester House and its owner, Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester. The square was built for the rich and famous whose tenants included Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the artist William Hogarth. Leicester House was demolished in the late 18th century, and the area became more rundown as it became a centre for retail and entertainment. Several significant theatres were built in the 19th century and converted to cinemas towards the middle of the 20th century.
Leicester Square Gardens
The land where Leicester Square Garden now lies once belonged to the Abbot and Convent of Westminster Abbey and was known as Leicester Field. This field was classed as common land, where people were allowed to let their livestock graze. The square has always had a park in its centre. However, its fortunes have varied over the centuries, reaching near dilapidation in the mid-19th century after changing ownership several times. It was restored in the 21st century, which included the construction of four new statues and a fountain of William Shakespeare. The square was extensively refurbished and re-modelled for the 2012 London Olympics
Wyndham Theatre – Leicester Square
Sir Charles Wyndham was an actor and theatre proprietor, and this was his first theatre – The Wyndham's Theatre – which opened on 16 November 1899 in the presence of the Prince of Wales – the future Edward VII. Charing Cross Road goes from Trafalgar Square northwards towards Tottenham Court Road and is known for its bookshops. There are several theatres in this location, as well as casinos and cinemas. Food and drink can be found nearby in Leicester Square, St Martin’s Lane, and towards Chinatown and Soho.
VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE AREA
Click on the picture below to go on a 360 virtual tour of the shopping areas and look around.
Use the route to explore this location by looking around in 360, taking in the sights and sounds, listening to an audio recording about the area and going on a virtual tour.
This gallery provides more information on each of the areas shown in the virtual tour, using their 360 images.
.
Comments