"Imperial Treasure is a glam Chinese restaurant in St. James's that has the feel of a particularly nice airport lounge, with the exorbitant prices and exclusive clientele to match. The daytime dim sum is great, especially the silky cheung fun, but make no mistake, you’re here a show we like to call The Reverential Duck Display. It’s high-brow theatre in four parts—the big tableside duck carving warm-up, meticulous rectangles of crisp skin to dip in sugar, the full hoisin pancake situation, a fried salt and pepper finale—and it’s fantastic. This is one restaurant where the difference between a good meal and a great one is commitment. Go all in on that bird banquet, otherwise you’ll probably have a meal that, like the setting, is shades of beige. That’s not always a bad thing—say, if you have a company card and you’re looking to crunch numbers with a client over crunchy prawn toast. But fun at Imperial Treasure starts and stops with that perfect peking experience. video credit: Heidi Lauth Beasley photo credit: Giulia Verdinelli photo credit: Giulia Verdinelli photo credit: Giulia Verdinelli Food Rundown video credit: Daisy Meager Berkshire Char Siu Pork Cheung Fun The highlight of the dim sum at Imperial Treasure is the cheung fun and this is the best of the cheung fun bunch. We’d like a little more filling, but it is delicately sweet and the rice rolls are thick and sticky. In case you’re interested, the runner-up cheung fun is the near-smoky, woodsy assorted mushroom cheung fun. video credit: Heidi Lauth Beasley Golden Prawn Toast We had these a couple of years ago and they were sesame-encrusted chewy legends. Time has not been kind to them. The outer crisp skin now tastes more like an experiment with an air fryer. One to skip. Peking Duck Course one: duck skin, plus sugar—simple, a borderline meat dessert, glazed to perfection. Course two: the big boy peking duck show—obscenely succulent meat, hoisin, and the secret star of the show, pancakes that are thicker than average and add a delightful yeastiness to proceedings. Course three: take it or leave it, honestly. The fried crispiness masks the duck’s tender star quality. Commit to course one and two." - Heidi Lauth Beasley
