Hakkasan

We went there last night and I'd say that I agree with most of what's already been said..... pricy but good food. The soft shell crab is great and the two duck dishes we had were superb - they do something weird with peanuts and the mini pak choi the best I've had.

dim sum platter to start magnificent

I kind of feel it's a bit too corporatey - but then again with these prices it's what you'd expect.

Coming to the deserts.... frankly don't bother.... a big let down after the wonderful earlier foods.. The black forest gateaux (how inappropriate is that) was frankly bland and tasted like it had been made many hours before......

This is a very fashon restaurant, is a meeting place for celebrities and it boasts of a superb design, inviting cocktails and a very sophisticated Chinese food. The dishes are well decorated and food is exquisited. The restaurant has soffused lights that create a night atmosphere, I find it very romantic! Maybe the atmosphere is too formal and sometimes the staff is not so friendly.

This is a very very cool place to 'say' you've been too. However it does do the very best selection of food I have every tasted and the cocktails are amazing. You can go there for lunch and stay for hours! Its pricey so best to save it for a business lunch or a special occasion.

London's full of rather gross Chinese restaurants but Hakkasan is a special night out.

It's not cheap, let's get that out of the way immediately. However the whole experience is great. A really wide range of food costs from between £4 to £100! The portions are really big though so make sure you don't over order.

Save it for a special night out.

Hakkasan's food is out of this world. Possibly even deserving of it's position as one of the greatest restaurants in the world. Although I can't say have been to all the other contenders. It also does wonderful cocktails.

I don't really need to say much more than this - it has all been written already. So I shall talk about something a little different. In my eyes Hakkasan will be even better in 6 months time and heres why.

The plaudits this restaurant has been given are unrelenting - if you believe what you read this is not only the best restaurant in the city but also one of the coolest. Not your standard stuffy Michlen eatery.

The crowd is horrible. Too many people shouting a waiters unnecessarily, too many men flashing all they can, too many women looking for men who do just that.

Go in 6 months time when the buzz dies down - you'll come out a lot happier, thinking about the wonderful food and staff, and not the idiot on the table next to you.

This is by far my favourite restaurant in all of London. The food, ambiance, service and the overall experience is unlike any other restaurant in London. My favourite dish is the crispy duck. Out of this world.

The legendary Hakkasan has a well-deserved reputation as a top restaurant - sultry low-lit ambience, great service, jaw-droppingly good cocktails and incredible fusion food. The only problem I have found is the price - it's really rather expensive.

I've been for dinner there twice and both times the bill has elicited a sharp intake of breath and a hastily organised overdraft from yours truly. So, when organising a birthday lunch for my partner I thought Hakkasan would fit the "occasion dining" criteria but wondered how I could keep the cost down. The answer is to eat from the dim sum menu.

We had a cocktail each, a few jugs of sake and positively stuffed ourselves with delicious dim sum - all for around £30/head - that sounds expensive for dim sum but a) it's very, very good dim sum and b) it's very cheap for the Hakkasan experience.

So that's my top tip - do dim sum and swank it up! PS. the zesty martini has to be tasted to be believed...

As the previous reviewer noted, this is about as far from your local Chinese as Shanghai is from Tottenham Court Road.

Who would have thought that a former underground car park could be so glamorous? Tucked away down an unprepossessing side alley off Tottenham Court Road, descending into Hakkasan is like shimmying your way onto a James Bond film set. It's all just very dark and shiny and slick.

Start off with a cocktail at the long, long bar - some elegant concoction is the perfect introduction to a stylish evening. Then it's on to the food.

If you're a Chinese fan, you won't be disappointed - it is beyond delicious. It's all very high quality and either the platinum version of a common dish, or offers a twist on a traditional dish.

But this sort of high style dining comes at a price. If you're penny pinching or concerned about cash, don't bother. This is an expensive joint and fretting over the inevitable three figure bill is only going to spoil your enjoyment.

Hakkasan is very cool, and boy does it know it. I took my better half there for her birthday one year, and for this sort of event dining it is pretty good. You wouldn't have thought it when you first arrive, located as it is in a side street round the back of Tottenham Court Road. When you make the way down to the restaurant though, it's a different story. It's full of teak blinds, black walls, and subdued lighting. We were ushered to the bar, where we ordered a couple of glasses of champagne whilst they prepared our table. So far, definitely not the Golden Gate takeaway in Hackney.

Apparently Hakkasan is owned by Alan Yau, who turns out to be the guy behind wagamamas. After selling that, he made Hakkasan, and more recently Yauatcha in Soho, which is a similarly trendy tea and dim sum place. Both have Michelin stars, which is again something that the Golden Gate is unlikely to attain. There are some things that grate with Hakkasan though. Firstly, you are told that you can have the table for only two hours (it's less at 90 minutes at Yauatcha). They really do take themselves seriously, we ordered food, then a french sounding sommelier came to ask us about our wine order. As good as the food is (and it really is quite special), I'm not sure chinese food needs a sommelier.

We had dim sum to start, which were the best I've had anywhere. We also ordered prawn toast, mainly to see just how good prawn toast could be at 8 quid a portion. turns out pretty bloody good. We then had venison in chilli, seafood platter, and bok choi in oyster sauce. All the food was top-drawer stuff, but you'd expect that from mains that cost 26 quid, in the case of the seafood. It is worth mentioning though that they do have shark's fin soup on the menu. Now I know this is an authentic chinese delicacy, but it has all sorts of moral difficulties, and some people object to it so much that just the thought of it might put them off their prawn toast, which would be a shame...