The best restaurants for Chinese food in Boston

Those in the know swear by this cozy Chinatown eatery for its inexpensive, handmade dumplings. Steamed or pan-fried, the doughy delights come in all shapes and sizes. The can't miss items include the beef scallion pancake and the soup dumplings.

With a menu covered in camera icons to note super photogenic dishes, your IG feed doesn’t leave hungry from this Chinatown eatery either. Home to fun Asian fusion cuisine, Double Chin takes a playful spin on lots of classic dishes. Thankfully your sweet tooth won’t feel left out. End the meal with the signature Cube Toast - brioche made in-house at Bao Bao bakery, tossed into French Toast batter, and reassembled into a masterpiece. Then they add fruit, mochi, Pocky, ice cream, cereal, condensed milk, and chocolate syrup.

Down a side street and up a flight of stairs, Taiwan Café can be hard to find, making the journey part of the adventure. With more than 100 items, the sprawling menu incorporates something for everyone, especially those with an adventurous palate (dried lily flowers, duck tongues and stuffed intestines make multiple appearances). If you aren’t feeling adventurous, there are plenty of tasty traditional soups, noodles, dumplings, and meats to dive into.

This hip South End gem serves a fusion of Asian cuisines, including Chinese and Taiwanese. Menu highlights include fall-off-the-bone tea-smoked spare ribs, braised pork belly buns, and smoked chicken wings with maple, miso and cashews. The vibrant, intimate spot is great for a dim sum date night. The restaurant is also notable for offering nut-free, shellfish-free, gluten-free and vegetarian menus.

It’s no wonder this Chinese spot has been beloved by locals for decades. Asian art, sleek banquettes and a prominently positioned full bar dispensing exotic cocktails in retro tiki glasses give Changsho’s contemporary dining room an upscale feel. The impression is reinforced by highly professional service—the affable waitstaff will guide you through the menu of Hunan and Szechuan specialties. Popular options include delicate steamed edamame dumplings, sumptuous lobster with ginger scallions, and northern Chinese classics like Kung Pao chicken.

Sister restaurant to Brighton’s humble Yunnan rice noodle shop South of the Clouds, this small South End spot has garnered attention from not only locals but also top industry dogs (its chef was a 2023 James Beard Foundation Award Best Chef Northeast nominee). While there are classics like spring rolls, garlic shrimp and General Gao’s Chicken, not to be missed among the authentic Dian dishes found nowhere else in Boston are the Grandma’s Potatoes, Wood Ear Mushroom Salad, and Mint Beef. The Xishuangbanna Lemongrass Tilapia serves two, but you might have trouble sharing.

Office workers and hoodie-clad students pack this 20-seat, cash-only noodle house to down steaming bowls of spicy soup and orders of hand-pulled flour noodles (smacked into shape onsite). Carnivores have plenty of choices, such as the stellar cumin-lamb noodles and the namesake pork or beef flatbread sandwiches, which are a staple food in the owner’s Western Chinese region of Xi’an. Due to the limited space and scruffy environs, most customers take their orders to go. There are also locations in Woburn and Westford.

Its location near Kendall Square almost guarantees this Hunanese restaurant’s bright, colorful environs is packed with local techies and office workers. The restaurant—a labor of love from Sumiao Chen, a research scientist-turned-restaurateur from Xiangtan, Hunan—offers the bold flavors and fiery spices known to the cuisine, one of eight famous culinary Chinese traditions. The kitchen combines traditional recipes and techniques with high-quality sourcing and modern touches, yielding flavorful dishes, including several exotic, unique options. Wednesday and Thursday nights add in live music to complete the scene.

Even if you don’t live in the area, this consistently packed gem is worth the trek for its freshly prepared, authentic Taiwanese (and Chinese) eats served in a relaxed, contemporary setting (slate floor, dark, Asian-style woodwork). Attentive staff start you off with complimentary pickled veggies and hot tea. Progress to handmade dumplings and stellar savories, such as cuttlefish with scallion and ginger, and stir-fried Chinese watercress with minced garlic.

If the name conjures up bucolic landscapes, Peach Farm’s dowdy basement digs promptly erase them. Happily, the Hong Kong-style seafood soon makes amends. Spiced dry-fried eel, enormous steamed oysters in black bean sauce, and lobster stir-fried with ginger and scallions are all superlative.

This tastefully understated Huron Village spot is a cut above the standard-issue neighborhood joint. With a menu that spans Szechuan, Taiwanese and Mandarin fare, everything is cooked fresh to order. This translates to noticeably fresher, lighter flavors, as represented by the Taiwanese spicy mushroom salad and the fiery volcano chicken, which is marinated, fried, and then stir-fried with five spices to create a succulent dish.

After a night at the casino tables, dining at this gorgeous restaurant inside Encore Boston Harbor is a safe bet. Red 8 recently became the culinary castle of celebrated Chinese Chef Kevin HanQing Yuan, and he skillfully works with his team to prepare sumptuous dishes. You’ll find an à la carte menu with familiar specialties like dim sum, wok-tossed noodles, pork wontons, crab rangoon, noodle soups, and sweet and sour pork—all elevated and served in a sumptuous red and gold room. The Peking Duck comes straight from the wood-fire oven, and the whole steamed fish presentation is a feast for the eyes and the palate.

Specializing in Jiang Nan style noodles and small bites, this take-out friendly family-owned spot in Brookline has a short menu with a lot of flavor. Take a seat (if you can get one – the café only has 14 seats) to try the signature steamed chicken dumplings swimming in spicy Sichuan sauce, delightful dan dan noodles, scallion pancakes and out-of-this-world wonton soup. They also have mochi ice cream and smoothies for a refreshing blast of cool after some of the spice.

Locals know that if you can’t get to Chinatown, the place to find a variety of Asian cuisine around The Hub is Quincy. With dim sum delights made to order all day, it’s hard to beat Winsor for classic siu mai dumplings, BBQ pork buns and shrimp and chive dumplings.

Sister entity of Woburn’s Sichuan Garden restaurant and Baldwin Bar and tucked away,t ucked away in Brookline Village, in a sophisticated, airy room, is some of the best Sichuan cuisine in the Boston area, like Dan Dan noodles that will make your tongue tingle and braised beef with napa cabbage. However, what truly elevates this spot is Blossom Bar, the in-house cocktail bar that leans heavily into rum-based, tiki-style drinks, which delightfully complement the Sichuan food.

With a spacious new location at Iron Works South Boston, this dumpling café offers up a brewery vibe and is a space where you can take a factory tour to see how the dumplings are made, enjoy a meal at the café, and even take cooking classes. Not to be missed is the Double Awesome, a scallion pancake sandwich with two eggs, Vermont cheddar, local greens pesto, and bacon or ham. They also have added beer, wine and cocktails to their menu.

White walls, utilitarian floor tiles and sparse decor create a somewhat stark setting, but who cares? This cheap-eats fixture in North Cambridge is known for its dumplings (pan-fried or steamed) and vast menu, which includes specialties like Szechuan-style fish with black bean sauce and cumin-spiced lamb.

If you grew up in the Boston suburbs, chances are good you had at least one memorable meal courtesy of the late Sally Ling’s, the upscale Chinese spot that convinced your parents Friday night takeout was a worthy idea. Ling’s daughter will help you make new memories with her outpost in Weston Center; among the choice offerings are three different ramens, including an intense, three-day pork broth packed with pork belly, soft egg, bamboo, red pickled ginger, kombu seaweed and scallions. (Tip: You should still save room for her mom’s famous spring rolls.)

Nan Xiang Express is the fast-casual sister of Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao and focuses on takeout and delivery, but there is also seating on site. Also known for its soup dumplings, just like Gourmet Dumpling House was, Nan Xiang Express is certainly a place to get your fix. Beyond the Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings), pan fried pork buns, siu mai, chive and pork dumplings, fried rice and much more fills the menu.