Chinese buffet near me
Quick answer
Chinese buffet and all-you-can-eat restaurants near you, sorted by distance, with Food Standards Agency hygiene ratings.
What this list shows
These are Chinese restaurants with buffet in their registered name. Buffets are less common than takeaways, so the nearest one may be further away than your nearest Chinese takeaway. Some large Chinese and pan-Asian restaurants run a buffet without using the word in their name, so it is worth checking the restaurants on our main map too.
Getting the best from a buffet
Go early in a service. Food is freshest when trays have just been filled, and dishes that sit under heat lamps for a long time dry out. Watch which trays are being refilled most often: those are the dishes other diners like. Many buffets cook some dishes to order, such as noodles or teppanyaki, which will be fresher than anything on the counter.
Hygiene matters more at a buffet
Buffet food is held hot or cold for long periods and handled by many people, so good hygiene is essential. The Food Standards Agency rating on each listing tells you how the premises scored at its last inspection. A 5 is what you want to see.
Prices
Most buffets charge a fixed price per person, often cheaper at lunchtime than in the evening, and cheaper again for children. Drinks are usually extra.
Find them near you
Search by postcode or use your location to find results near you.
Where to find them
UK councils with the most matches in our directory.
Related dishes
Crispy aromatic duck is the British Chinese restaurant's version of Peking duck: five-spice duck steamed until tender then fried until crisp, shredded, and eaten in thin pancakes with hoisin, cucumber and spring onion. Quarter-duck to share, it is one of the most ordered things on the UK menu, and though it is a local invention, done well it is genuinely good.
Spring RollsSpring rolls are crisp fried rolls of thin pastry around a vegetable or meat filling, the standard starter of the British Chinese meal. The name comes from their origin as a spring-festival food. The good version is shatteringly crisp with a hot, well-seasoned filling; the bad one is a greasy tube of cabbage. They are eaten dipped in a sweet chilli or a vinegar sauce.
Singapore NoodlesSingapore noodles are thin rice vermicelli stir-fried with curry powder, prawns, char siu, egg and vegetables, yellow with spice and light in texture. Despite the name they are not from Singapore: they are a Hong Kong invention, and a fixture of the British Chinese menu. Good ones are dry, fragrant and separate; bad ones are a greasy, clumped, over-curried tangle.
Char SiuChar siu is Cantonese barbecue pork: strips of pork marinated in a sweet-savoury sauce and roasted until the edges caramelise and char. Glossy red and honey-glazed, it hangs in the windows of Cantonese roast-meat shops and tops rice, noodles and buns. It is one of the great Cantonese things and a good test of a siu mei (roast meat) kitchen.