The best Chinese restaurants in Melbourne

Extravagantly decked out with a grand sweeping staircase and a suspended steel dragon to boot, Panda Hot Pot is perhaps the most ostentatious backdrop against which to enjoy hot pot in Melbourne. The famous global franchise has wowed Melbourne diners with its signature 12-hour broth, its endless condiment station and a menu boasting close to 100 ingredients – plant eaters need not fret as there are plenty of vegetarian and vegan options, too. 

If you’ve been visiting modern Asian restaurant Lagoon since it opened its doors, you’ll know some things remain constant despite its ever-changing menu. Hand-cut into uniform thin slivers and blanched to al dente perfection before they’re flash fried over the fierce heat of a wok, the crowd-pleasing hot and sour shredded potato remains the most well-balanced iteration of the classic Sichuan dish tu dou si that we've tasted in Melbourne. Also, the charcoal-roasted char siu has never not been on the menu and there’s a reason why – sliced neatly into thin slivers and glazed with honey, the barbecued pork is only bettered by one thing: the oily, savoury spring onion relish accompanying it. 

Out in Huntingdale, small family-run restaurant Chef Wong is serving up one of the finest yum cha feasts you can enjoy in the state. With more than 40 years of experience in preparing authentic Cantonese food, Chef Wong makes everything from scratch and you can even get a bag of his tasty creations for takeaway or order them online. You'll spot all your favourites on the menu, from pork siu mai to har gow and the crowd favourite, a fried beancurd prawn roll.

Asian smokehouse and Sydney cult favourite Yan has landed in South Yarra, bringing its succulent, fire-powered meats to the Melbourne foodie crowd. Diners can expect an array of creative pan-Asian dishes, such as beef tataki with smoked mussels and an anchovy wasabi crumb, smoked beef short rib with kale and mountain pepper, and one of the prettiest desserts we’ve seen all year: a layered Hong Kong milk tea cake with rum and brown sugar pearls. It’s a must-try for bubble tea lovers. 

Hi Chong Qing is the first venture from restaurateur Kevin Houng, who spent some time in Chongqing learning the art of making a good bowl of noodles from a master who has been honing his craft for 26 years. Fresh and springy wheat flour noodles, a mouth-numbing broth due to the presence of Sichuan peppercorns, and meaty additions are features of a traditional bowl of Chongqing noodles. Don’t venture near these noodles with a white shirt, or without a serviette bib – these slurpable oily noodles are messy and they will stain.

Genuine home-style Shandong cuisine doesn't get better than in this little shopping arcade dumpling den, which now has a mini outpost off Flinders Lane, too. The family-run restaurant is producing food with unparalleled freshness and flavour. Our favourites are the signature fish dumplings (a loose mince of oily mackerel, fragrant with ginger, coriander root and chives), the vegan zucchini dumplings enlivened by fried tofu and spring onion, and the Melbourne dumplings, which combine a medley of seafood with chicken mince, parsley and garlic. 

Biang Biang is home to springy, long and flat hand-pulled wheat noodles tossed in accompaniments like stewed pork, tomato and egg, slow-cooked beef and a ton of chilli oil. The fact that Biang Biang is perennially packed speaks to its appeal. The namesake noodles are the must-order, but if you’re feeling like something different or can’t process gluten, there are rice noodles served cold as well as vermicelli. 

With ‘steamed buns’ in the restaurant name, you can’t go past Yulongfu’s xiao long bao – made using an ancestral recipe passed down through co-owner Emily Liu’s family since 1904. Sure you could get the classic pork xiao long bao or you could get it with a flourish of black truffle or the fanciful addition of crab. Afterwards, move on to the pipis in XO sauce or go all out and share the sweet and sour barramundi, drunken chicken and deep-fried ice cream for dessert, of course. 

Though RuYi is a beautiful airy space to eat in, you’ll come for the dumplings and the dumplings alone. And you should. Gingery pork mince is captured in ragged wantons made slick by the spicy, piquant pool of chilli oil and Chinese vinegar they’re served swimming in. They also happen to make a hell of a crab xiao long bao – everyone’s favourite soup-filled pinch-topped pouches, here holding a loose cargo of fresh crabmeat and pork mince lightly flecked with coriander root in a rich viscous broth.

This swanky Chinese restaurant at Crown boasts far more than meets the eye. Its menu shines a light on China's lesser-known regional favourites, from places like Yunnan, Jangxi, Hunan, Sichuan, Guangxi and Xingjiang, and each dish is a complex, perfectly executed and tongue-tantalising marvel – from the mouth-popping seasonal mud crabs to the famous tea-smoked duck breast. Sure, the intimate space is gorgeous but it's the food that's worth coming for. 

David’s has long been Melbourne’s go-to spot for Shanghai cuisine, first starting as a tea store on Chapel Street before becoming the place it is today. David's signature dishes are inspired by the cuisine of Zhouzhuang, a rural riverside town in Shanghai. Crowd favourites include the luxe crackling pork san choi bao served with seasonal vegetables and a hoisin glaze, and a classic Peking duck served with cucumber and leek. The mapo tofu dumplings and salted duck dumplings are great options if you’re looking to branch out from your usual order of prawn dumplings.

Bowltiful serves the Chinese-Muslim style of beef noodle and keeps it as traditional as possible. Choose from nine varieties of hand-pulled noodles that vary in shape and thickness to go into any of the eight dishes available. Beef and lamb offal feature in the noodle soups, whereas ground bean pastes, eggy tomato and a garlic-bomb gravy top dry noodle dishes. A mark of a great hand-pulled noodle is when the gluten in the flour has been worked so hard it produces a bouncy, chewy single noodle, which is the case at Bowltiful. If you opt for the thickest noodle, be warned: you will need to be deft with your chopsticks as it is as thick as a credit card, makes for messy eating and could result in mega splash-back.

Secret Kitchen is recognisable by its curved fish tank on the corner of Little Bourke and Exhibition Streets (signifying that it specialises in seafood), but it punches above its weight in the yum cha department, too. Secret Kitchen falls under the China Bar umbrella, and this two-storey Cantonese restaurant is the place to go when you’re in the mood for a big feed. You have to book in for yum cha on the weekends or you will be turned away. All your old favourites are here, but with a twist: sticky har gow with king prawns, siu mai with abalone, and steamed rice rolls with scallops and black truffle.  

Arguably the overlord of malatang in Melbourne, Dragon Hot Pot has franchised aggressively over the past few years, with 17 stores now open across the state. Chief among them is this snug Russell Street outpost that's open late every night. Choose any combination of meat, seafood, noodles, tofu and vegetables to be cooked in broths ranging from the signature malatang to the 12-hour-steeped bone marrow broth or the vegan malatang. 

It’s been a while. Maybe 35 years. Maybe 36. Maybe more. The exact figure is lost to the mists of time. When it comes to putting a date on Supper Inn, let’s just say it threw open its doors around the time when Malcolm Fraser was prime minister, which means it’s reached the restaurant year equivalent of the Qing dynasty. The menu is long, but make a beeline for the chicken congee flecked with ginger and accompanied by Chinese doughnuts, the soothing minced pork, eggplant and salted fish hotpot, or the glistening roast meats. 

There are 12 million Uyghurs, mostly Muslim, living in Xinjiang in China – they speak their own language, more similar to Turkish than Mandarin, and they’re ethnically closer to people who live in Central Asian nations. Their food is unlike anything you’ll find at a stock-standard Chinese restaurant, but you can give it a try at Footscray stalwart Karlaylisi. Expect läghmän (stir-fried hand-pulled noodles), manti (a type of Uyghur dumpling stuffed with either beef or lamb) and cumin lamb skewers, one of Karlaylisi’s bestsellers. 

If you’re unfamiliar with Chino Latino or 'chifa' cuisine, Casa Chino may seem like just another fusion restaurant. But it’s rooted in history, drawing inspiration from the large Chinese diaspora who live in Peru and around Latin America. Most dishes will look pretty familiar to anyone with a grasp of Cantonese food – siu mai and dumplings, bao, fried rice – but there are Latin American influences sprinkled throughout. And for the most part, the two pair wonderfully. The best way to order, it seems, is from across the entire breadth of the menu.

As part of the Gold Leaf restaurant group, this Burwood branch is a safe haven for dim sum chasers who want efficient service and quality food in a spacious, family-friendly setting. You'll find plenty of delicious classic dishes here such as sui mai, chicken feet and fried whitebait, and you can't go wrong with a mango pudding drizzled with condensed milk for dessert. But much of this Burwood establishment’s charm is in its buzzing, tall-ceiling dining room, filled with happily feasting families. Take along a big group and make a Sunday lunch out of it.

This bustling first-floor Cantonese restaurant is renowned for its seafood-forward dishes. Tables are large, so big group catch-ups or extended family gatherings are usually conducted here, with ginger and scallion stir-fried lobster over egg noodles and winter melon soup crowning each table. Yum cha occurs daily, and alongside more traditional dishes you can find wu gok (fried taro dumplings) stuffed with a creamy chicken filling rather than the usual pork gravy, and orange-tinted golden lava buns (steamed buns filled with a sweet-savoury runny salted egg yolk custard).

Cult institution Dainty Sichuan Food has been a must-visit on Melbourne's food scene since 2003 and two things remain steadfast: the chilli is hot and the Sichuan pepper is tinglingly, numbingly fresh. Don’t leave without trying the boiling fish in golden basin (surrounded by a sea of Sichuan peppers), the fiery mapo tofu and the delicately piquant cumin lamb slices. It’s way up there with the best Sichuan we’ve ever had the pleasure of burning our mouths on. 

Tina’s Noodle Kitchen is part of the Dainty Sichuan group and owner Tina Li's CBD noodle shop. If you're at all familiar with the original Dainty Sichuan restaurants, you will be well aware that these guys don't shy away from the spice. So get that icy cold glass of water ready and prepare yourself for some delicious chilli heat, Sichuan style. If lunch time queues at the CBD branch are any indication, Tina's noodle soups are worth the wait. It's a quick and easy affair once you find a seat though, the giant bowls of still simmering noodles covered in chilli oil will hit the table almost as soon as you get your drink. Don't be scared of the unfamiliar ingredients – the ruffles of black mushroom and konjac jelly are actually very healthy traditional ingredients. All the more reason to tuck into their famously fiery fried chicken.

Crown Melbourne’s upmarket Chinese restaurant is a go-to for many a special family occasion. With a focus on locally sourced meats and fresh seafood, Silks serves up high-quality dishes such as dim sum, barbecue, multi-regional noodle and rice dishes, as well as some seriously tasty desserts. 

This is not the kind of potluck where you need to bring a dish; fortunately, owner Esther Sun has you sorted for those. This funky, laidback eatery in Caufield offers eats inspired by Sun's family dinner and diverse Asian upbringing. The food may lean Chinese but it takes its cues from all over Asia and with incredibly delicious results. Mark our words, fusion is getting so much better in Melbourne.