Hakkasan Mayfair

On this occasion we tried the dim sum offering at Hakkasan at lunch-time. Even on this Wednesday in January the restaurant was pretty busy, and apparently on a Saturday night it is not unusual for the restaurant to do 600 covers.

Har gau, the classic prawn dumpling, had superbly delicate dumpling and tender, sweet prawn (16/20). Char sui bun was light and airy, filled with slightly sweetened pork (14/20). Chinese chive dumpling with prawn was also very good, the herb going well with the shellfish, the dumpling excellent (15/20).

Scallop with XO sauce dumpling was excellent, the flavour of the scallop coming through very well, the shellfish tender (15/20). Prawn cheung fun with gal lan was lovely, a world away from the slimy versions that are so often encountered in Chinatown (15/20). The star dish was a plate of baked venison puffs, the pastry delicate and the flavour of the deer delightful (16/20).

The bill, with just jasmine tea and mineral water to drink, came to £33 a head for plenty of dim sum; we never made it to dessert. Service was slick as ever, our waiter very attentive; one small nice touch was that he made no attempt to upsell us more mineral water when he poured out the last of the bottle. I am so used to waiters elsewhere desperately over-pouring wine and water and then saying “Another bottle?” that I had almost forgotten what it is like to just finish what you ordered without being hassled. In the evening if you ordered alcohol the bill would quickly climb, but £33 per head for top-notch dim sum seems fair to me.