The Best Cantonese Food in the United States

The gilded dining room inside the Wynn was designed to stop conversation mid-sentence, and the food takes the same approach. Wing Lei is a fine dining room built around Cantonese, Sichuan, and Shanghainese cooking, and it holds a Forbes Five Star, a distinction no other Chinese restaurant in North America can claim. The Peking duck arrives on a custom cart and gets carved tableside, which is exactly as theatrical as it sounds.

Walls plastered with Polaroids and faded Cantopop posters set the mood at this Chinatown restaurant, where the cooking is as high-energy as the room. The menu is compact Cantonese with a loose, playful hand: claypot rice with bacon and sausage, mapo tofu spaghetti that shouldn't work but clearly does. Reservations vanish fast, and the walk-in line forms before doors open. Bon Appétit and Esquire both named it among America's best new restaurants in 2024.

The abacus-inspired light fixtures alone could convince you this is a design hotel lobby, but Mott 32 is a fine dining room doing serious contemporary Chinese food inside The Palazzo. The menu pulls from Cantonese and Sichuanese traditions, and the applewood-roasted Peking duck has a following of its own. The dim sum spreads run all-you-can-eat without feeling like a cafeteria, which is a harder trick than it sounds.

A yellow neon sign greets you at the door of this small Columbia Heights restaurant, and everything inside quietly contradicts it: white floors, blue banquettes, geometric screens carving out private nooks. The menu runs through modern Hong Kong cooking, the kind where high-heat wok technique meets unexpected pairings. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the chef picked up a James Beard nomination for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic.

A dim sum shop that rose from a literal fire, HK Lounge Bistro landed in SoMa after its beloved predecessor burned down in 2019, and the regulars followed. The carpeted, low-key room inside an office building asks you to ignore the setting and focus on the food, which isn't hard. Shanghai soup dumplings, baked pork buns with a crackly top, and shrimp wontons in peppery sesame sauce do most of the persuading. The Los Angeles Times named it one of the 101 Best Restaurants in California.

A nondescript Katy strip mall is doing a lot of work here. Inside, the dining room runs to sleek fixtures and lazy susan-fitted private rooms, and the menu reads like a focused edit of Hong Kong classics rather than the usual encyclopedia. Congee, wonton soup, and candied walnut shrimp anchor things, with weekend seafood specials worth asking about. The Michelin Guide has it on their list, and the Houston Chronicle ranked it among the city's top restaurants.

Spago is a business-casual fine-dining room at Bellagio, and its patio has a front-row view of the fountains, which is why you'll be humming Sinatra whether you meant to or not. The menu sits between luxurious and familiar: pizzas, pastas, and a thick cheeseburger with charred onions. The chinois chicken salad has been on since the early eighties, the culinary equivalent of a band that still plays the hits.

Calvin Eng's Cantonese restaurant and bar sits on a nondescript east Williamsburg corner, close enough to the BQE that you'll feel the trucks. Inside, it reads like a retro Hong Kong diner, but the kitchen runs modern interpretations of regional Cantonese food, and the MSG Martini earned a spot on Esquire's national list. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, and the James Beard Foundation named Eng an Emerging Chef nominee.

Hakkasan is a five-story Cantonese restaurant and nightclub in the MGM Grand, so dinner and the dance floor share a building and a dress code. A set menu keeps the bill friendlier than most Strip showpieces, and the dim sum arrives in colors that photograph better than they have any right to. The peking duck comes with caviar, which tells you how the evening is meant to end: upstairs, with a DJ and a bottle.

A scarlet lobster logo, shells painted gold and silver on the wall, and half the tables splitting one at any given hour make the signature self-evident at this Cantonese restaurant in Alhambra. Henry's is an unassuming room doing homestyle cooking that's increasingly hard to find, selected by the Michelin Guide and named to the LA Times' 101 best. Come at dinner when the full menu opens up, and ask what vegetables are in season.

The Ferry Building and Bay Bridge fill the windows of this upscale Cantonese restaurant and dim sum spot in Embarcadero Center, which feels more like a special-occasion destination than a Sunday cart-and-stamp-card affair. The space runs large, with sun-drenched rooms, intimate nooks, and an outdoor patio. Lunch brings an extensive dim sum menu; dinner leans into Cantonese classics. The coffee lava buns are the kind of thing you'll think about afterward.

Wonton soup, congee, and lacquered duck are the foundation, but the menu at this Cantonese restaurant keeps going through whole fish, stir-fries, and enough elaborate dishes to keep a large table busy for hours. The BYOB policy makes group birthdays feel practically festive on a budget. It sits at a corner where the Lower East Side runs into Chinatown, and the room fills accordingly with the full diversity of both neighborhoods.

Getting to this moody Cantonese fine dining room means running the gauntlet of the Fontainebleau lobby, a spectacle of beach bodies and night owls that does nothing to prepare you for the dark, clubby calm inside. Ornate wooden slat dividers and sleek marble tables set the scene, the music keeps the bass low and steady, and the kitchen leans hard into high-quality seafood alongside Cantonese classics like Peking duck with all its crêpes and hoisin.

Carts trundle through this spacious Cantonese dim sum hall on weekends, and by midday the entrance is already a bottleneck of people clutching numbered tickets. Point at what rolls past: lacquered duck, chewy lo mein, dumplings, fried wontons. The servers are moving fast and the tables are crowded and dimly lit, and the whole operation hums along in cheerful, productive disorder. Phoenix New Times handed it Best Dim Sum in 2025.

The dining room holds enough live-seafood tanks that you half expect a guided tour, but R&G Lounge is a Chinatown banquet-style restaurant where the point is the occasion. Dungeness crab fried in salt and pepper, black cod baked to the texture of soft butter, geoduck sliced thin for sashimi. The seafood swims until you order it, which settles the freshness question before it's even asked.

Pork and duck puffs shaped like little black swans are the opening move at this upscale dim sum house inside Ghirardelli Square, where the room earns its own attention with colored lanterns, tiled murals, and candle tea warmers. Classics come with upgrades: lobster where shrimp usually goes, squid ink in the fried rice. The bay-facing patio fills up fast on Sunday mornings with people who planned ahead, and a few who got lucky.

Hong Kong cinema posters line the walls and a glowing marquee floats above the chef's counter at this high-energy Cantonese American restaurant on Chrystie. The cooking is generous and unfussy, built on good ingredients without making a big speech about it. The XO fried rice and salt and pepper fried chicken pull regulars back repeatedly. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and priced like they mean it.

The koi ponds in the dining room are the first hint that this isn't your average dim sum operation. Koi Palace is a sprawling, upscale Cantonese dim sum hall in Daly City that's been an anchor of the Bay Area scene forever, and the carts still move with unusual confidence. A James Beard semifinalist, it draws weekend crowds willing to wait for siu mai that skew smaller and fresher than the genre norm.

Dim sum ordered off a menu rather than flagged down from a cart means everything arrives from the steamer still properly hot, which sounds obvious until you've had the other kind. This Cantonese seafood restaurant in Rosemead holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and draws the kind of crowd that fills large round tables for both weekend dim sum and proper evening dinners. The seafood is the reason to stay through dinner.

The strip mall on Turkey Lake Road does nothing to prepare you for the room inside, which runs to chandeliers and private dining spaces with the full sweep of a Cantonese seafood clubhouse. Dim sum arrives made to order rather than off a cart, so everything lands hot. The selection runs deep, from siu mai and egg tarts to sticky pork dumplings with a crispy, mochi-soft interior. The Michelin Guide has taken notice, and the move is to come with a crowd and keep ordering.

Carpeted walls and glass cases displaying the day's ingredients signal that this isn't your average dim sum hall. Dragon Beaux is a contemporary Cantonese spot in the Richmond where the siu mai comes topped with crab roe and the barbecue buns have a crunchy sugar crust that makes you rethink every bun you've had before. Save room for the custard dumplings, which arrive looking demure and then absolutely don't.

The name is a trap, and a good one. Tucked inside a market on Buford Highway, this Cantonese counter spot hangs roast ducks in the window and lines its walls with numbered food photos so ordering is almost embarrassingly easy. The portions run large, the duck is lacquered and serious, and the honey barbecue pork earns its own return visit. Chamblee's stretch of Buford Highway is Atlanta's great culinary equalizer, and this is one of its reliable anchors.

On weekends, an announcer calls reservation numbers over a booming speaker like high-stakes bingo, and the crowd outside barely fits through the door. Inside, this cavernous Brooklyn dim sum palace runs on steaming carts and trays shuttled through a gold-accented dining room. Eyes do most of the ordering. Weekdays are considerably calmer, which some people quietly prefer.

Dim sum carts still roll through this cavernous Cantonese dining room inside the Gold Coast casino, just off the Strip, which is its own kind of statement. The open kitchen turns out roast duck and walnut prawns alongside the steamed, baked, and fried parade from the trolleys. The lotus-wrapped sticky rice bundles and XO fried rice rolls are the ones to flag down. A full Cantonese menu runs all day for anyone who wants something more substantial.

Dim sum made to order rather than wheeled around on carts sets this Chinatown shop apart from its neighbors. The photo menu keeps things moving, which helps on weekends when the room is full and tables are shared with strangers as a matter of course. Rice rolls, pan-fried pork dumplings, and soup dumplings all come out fresh. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the portions are generous enough that the slightly higher prices barely register.

The parking lot fills fast and the wait on weekends is real, but this Cantonese noodle shop in Rosemead moves its crowd along with the confidence of a place that has never needed dim sum carts to draw a line. Everything arrives hot and carefully seasoned, from steamed buns packed with char siu to rice noodle rolls that most tables order twice. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and priced like they forgot to notice.

Red Plate is a Cantonese fine-dining room tucked away at the Cosmopolitan, small enough and quiet enough that you forget you're a few floors above a casino. Tea-based cocktails share the menu with evening dim sum and roast meats, and a whole suckling pig or duck can be ordered ahead if you're organized or celebrating. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Southwest.

Dale Talde's Hong Kong-style restaurant sits inside a carriage house on a sprawling Hudson Valley estate, where the dining rooms look like someone inherited very good furniture and actually kept it. The menu runs kung pao wings alongside bao stuffed with crispy shrimp and daikon, the kind of cooking that's both nostalgic and quietly restless. Dressy-casual crowd, unhurried pace, and a setting that makes Tarrytown feel like a reasonable destination.

The pastry case up front, stacked with crepe and box cakes in flavors like durian and chestnut, hints that this Aurora-border spot plays by its own rules. It's a small, easy-to-miss Hong Kong-style restaurant where the chef's special section does the heavy lifting, and several of the greatest hits aren't on the menu at all. Ask about the salt-and-pepper tofu, and call ahead if you want crab or lobster.

The salt-and-pepper chicken wings at this old-school Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown have a following that borders on devotional. Wok-tossed with garlic and jalapeño, the crunch when you bite in is audible across the room, which is either a party trick or a warning, depending on your table neighbors. The rest of the menu holds its own too, but the wings are why regulars come, and why they stay a little longer than planned.

A case of lacquered meats behind the counter does most of the advertising at this Cantonese barbecue stall inside Mills Market. The team came up through the food truck circuit and landed here with roast duck, char siu, and crispy pork sold by the pound or over steamed rice. Dim sum rounds out the menu, and the fried mochi pork dumpling has a faint sweetness that earns its place. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected restaurants.

Live tanks of crab, lobster, and flounder line the back wall, which sets the tone for what this Cantonese dim sum house is doing differently from its strip-mall neighbors. Weekend mornings draw Chinese families through a wide rotation of steamed, baked, and fried dim sum, the dumplings carefully pleated and the barbecue pork buns doing their thing. Evenings shift toward the seafood tanks. The Michelin Guide has it selected.

Sam Wo has been around forever, which in San Francisco's Chinatown means it has survived earthquakes, closures, new ownership, and the slow creep of chow mein tourists. It's an old-school Cantonese noodle house where the move is the steamed rice rolls stuffed with char siu, served with a swipe of hot mustard that will clear your sinuses immediately. The tea program has gotten an upgrade, with oolongs and pu-erhs now on offer, though the rice porridge with fried doughnut remains unchanged and deeply comforting.

The Taishan roast chicken arrives head-on, carved tableside by a server wearing two layers of gloves who tears it apart with her bare hands. This Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown is one of the few places left that stays open deep into the night, which means the 2 a.m. crowd runs from solo diners working through a clay pot of eel rice to the chefs from Four Kings. Named among San Francisco Chronicle's top Chinese restaurants in the Bay Area, it earns the spot at any hour.

The steamed-up windows are the first sign you're in the right place. Hon's is a no-frills Cantonese noodle house in Chinatown, been around forever, and the wonton soup is the reason: thin noodles, plump pork-and-shrimp dumplings in a clear broth with a deep, funky dried-shrimp backbone. The scallion pancakes are hard to skip. Lunch crowds move fast, solo diners fit right in, and the whole thing costs almost nothing.

The facade is papered with photos of the original owner posing with Jackie Chan, Emeril Lagasse, and Jacques Pépin, which tells you most of what you need to know. This old-school Hong Kong seafood spot in Chinatown has been around forever and draws a late-night crowd that arrives hungry and slightly chaotic. The wok runs hot, the garlic-fried prawns arrive crunchy to the heads, and the salt-and-pepper calamari is what you order when the evening needs a proper ending.

The rice noodles here are stubby and chewy rather than the thin, rippling sheets you'd find elsewhere in Chinatown, and that texture is the whole point. Chang Lai is a tiny Cantonese noodle shop on Bayard where the regulars from the old street cart days have simply followed the owners indoors. Curry fish balls and noodles with all the sauces will run you around five dollars, which leaves you no excuse not to go twice.

Salt-and-pepper fried chicken wings and wok-fried noodles are the draws at this casual Cantonese spot on the west side of Houston. It has been a neighborhood staple long enough that regulars tend to know what they're getting before they sit down. Save room for the Hong Kong milk tea and the deep-fried French toast, which arrives drowning in butter and condensed milk, which is exactly the kind of ending a meal like this deserves.

A golden dragon installation anchors the back of this sprawling Alameda dim sum hall, where Lazy Susans spin constantly and the noise level confirms everyone is having a good time. Siu mai and har gow are done right, and the golden shrimp rice rolls, crunchy fried shrimp wrapped in chewy rice noodle sheets, are the kind of thing you keep ordering before the last plate is gone. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's top dim sum spots.

Gold flower fixtures hang from the ceiling of this grand San Leandro banquet hall, where the projectors are always ready for the next big event and the dim sum carts have been replaced by tablets. It's a multigenerational scene, grandparents and kids at the same table, tea steaming alongside turnip cakes. The strawberry taro balls, crunchy outside and custard-oozing within, tend to stop conversations mid-sentence.

Perched at the water's edge in Emeryville with a full view of the San Francisco skyline, this dim sum restaurant leans hard into old-school banquet hall grandeur, crystal chandeliers, guardian lion statues, and furniture that screams wedding reception. The classics anchor the menu, barbecue buns, siu mai, lotus leaf sticky rice, and the salt and pepper calamari that nobody expects but everyone orders twice. Dim sum runs into the evening, which is rarer than you'd think.

A live tank of crabs and fish greets you at the door of this spacious Cupertino dim sum hall, which hits peak chaos on weekends when families fill the room and steamer crates stack up fast. The taro puff shaped like a swan, stuffed with scallop-flavored taro, is the kind of thing that makes the table go quiet for a second. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best for dim sum.

Mom Kitchen is a cha chaan teng on Mira Mesa Boulevard, which means a Hong Kong diner where the menu runs long, the room runs plain, and the food shows up before you've finished getting comfortable. The noodles are made in-house, the drinks include hot Ovaltine and salted lemon 7-Up, and the roast duck hangs around for the same reasons you do. Cheap, fast, and a little maternal about clean plates.

Floor-to-ceiling windows face the marina, and the room leans into it with a chandelier big enough to mean business. This is a dim sum hall in Alameda, the check-box slip-and-tray kind, with a menu that mixes traditional and modern. The baked pork puffs, shiny and sesame-flecked, are the thing to track down when the cart comes by. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best dim sum.

Saigon Seafood Harbor runs a hybrid system: you fill out a paper order slip, then carts bring the food anyway. It's a dim sum parlor in a Sunnyvale strip, and the barbecue pork buns arrive with that glassy, lacquered top that signals someone is paying attention. The siu mai gets a drizzle of chile oil, and the scallop dumplings are translucent little parcels with enough celery to keep things bright. Weekend tables fill fast, so come early or come hungry enough to wait.

A Cantonese restaurant in the Cass Corridor doing all-day dim sum, which is reason enough to know where it is. Steamed pork buns, rice rolls, chive-and-garlic pancakes, Singapore rice vermicelli, and a hot and sour soup that earns its place on the menu. The room is small and unpretentious, with two- and four-tops filling fast, and the window seats offer a floor show the neighborhood reliably provides. Takeout moves quickly, too.

Finding dim sum inside a Courtyard by Marriott near West University is the kind of plot twist you normally need a map and a tip from a stranger for. Every dumpling and bun here is made to order, so nothing sits circling in a cart, and the shrimp cheung fun wraps crunchy fried shrimp in house-made rice noodles. There's a tea list and a green tea Old Fashioned, in case lunch needs a second act.

Wooden lanterns and colorful cocktails set the tone at this upscale Chinese bistro inside the Sheraton, where the chef takes Cantonese as a starting point and then wanders pleasantly off-script. Surf-and-turf kung pao and lobster rangoon signal the playful agenda, though the Forbidden Roast Duck, a five-spiced bird with crackling skin served alongside monogrammed bao buns, is the dish the table will still be talking about on the way home.

The front-of-house veteran behind this Cantonese-Sichuan brasserie grew up in his family's Chinese restaurants in Columbia, and XO reads like a fond memory made shareable. Dim sum, roast duck, and chow fun share the menu with chicken wings and caviar, which is either an identity crisis or a very good time. The cocktail list keeps pace with the food, and the crowd skews young and dressed for it.

Turquoise glazed tiles, dramatic florals, and a sixth-floor view over Chinatown and Telegraph Hill set the tone before you've touched a menu. This is a tasting-menu Cantonese restaurant from the chef behind Hakkasan, and it carries that same instinct for precise, composed presentations of classic dishes. Come for cocktails if the full commitment feels like a lot; the view alone justifies the elevator ride.

The live seafood tanks near the entrance set the agenda at this Cantonese dining room, where the kitchen has been turning out Hong Kong-style crab, lobster, and fresh fish for Houston since the family arrived from Hong Kong decades ago. Weekend dim sum draws a crowd that knows better than to sleep in. It's a big, bustling room, and the sweet-glazed barbecue pork alone tends to settle any argument about where to sit.

Handmade shu mai with its own devoted following is a reasonable thing to build a dim sum restaurant around. Sum Bar pulls it off with char siu pork, egg custard tarts, and Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce filling out the cart. Monday mahjong nights give regulars a reason to linger, and seasonal events like a Lunar New Year blowout keep the calendar lively. The proprietor co-produced a James Beard Award-winning documentary about opening this very spot.

Washing Potato is a dim sum restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip, from the person behind Hakkasan and Wagamama. The dining room sits on a raised platform with a view into two open kitchens, where cooks steam and roll dumplings by the hundreds. Black walls double as screens for swirling light shows, so even the white furniture gets a little theatrical. Expect traditional dim sum under all the lasers, plus Eater's list of top Chinese restaurants in town.

A Chinatown noodle shop where the soup comes piled with roast duck, wontons, and springy yellow noodles, all for around eight dollars. The move, though, is the brisket version, where the braised beef melts into the broth and makes the whole bowl taste twice as serious. Add a side of slow-cooked beef tendon and stir it in as you go. Named among the San Francisco Chronicle's picks for Chinatown, and the line out front tends to agree.

A food concept from B.J. Novak that treats chain restaurants as source material rather than punchlines, Chain landed its first permanent home inside a mall food court, which feels exactly right. Four chefs each riff on a fast-food classic: a Cantonese fish sandwich, a spicy chicken number, a teriyaki bowl, a mapo wagyu wrap. The nostalgia is the point, and the execution is the twist.

Claypot dishes and lacquered roasted meats are the draw at this polished but casual Cantonese spot, where most of the menu stays under $15 and the lunch crowd moves fast. It shares a building with the much larger Diamond Bay, which means dim sum from that sprawling menu is also on offer, a dangerous development for anyone who came in planning to keep it simple. New York restaurant group, Seattle address, Chinatown, International District building with history.

MingHin is a big, banquet-style dim sum hall in the Loop, with white tablecloths that promise formality and a room full of families that never got the memo. The menu runs long, and the sesame buns tend to start a small stampede toward the middle of the table. It makes a sensible pit stop once the boat tour, the Sears Tower, and the Bean have all been checked off for your out-of-town guests.

This is a dim sum restaurant in Katy Asian Town, part of the chain that earned the "world's least expensive Michelin-starred restaurant" nickname back in Hong Kong. The baked char siu buns, sweet and crackly on top, are what the room orders first. The dining room is big and booth-lined, with a bar off to the side that gives it a faint sports-bar energy. Nobody dresses up for this, and the check stays modest.

A Hong Kong-style all-day cafe where five-spice wings, barbecued unagi over scrambled eggs, Portuguese custard tarts, and clam chowder share a menu without anyone blinking. TingTing's, from the team behind EMei, is small, crowded, and BYO, which covers the essentials. The menu sprawls in the way those old Hong Kong cafes do, where Western comfort food and Cantonese staples occupy the same laminated page and somehow coexist peacefully.

Kwok's Bistro is a casual, stand-alone Cantonese-leaning Chinese restaurant just west of the big downtown casinos, which is about as far from a buffet as Reno gets. The chef, a former casino busboy, takes days to prepare the Beijing duck, so ordering it is a commitment. Wok-fired dishes lean on garlic and ginger, and the lamb brings real heat. The chef was a James Beard Best Chef: Southwest semifinalist.

Rice ground daily on-site in electric stone mills is the tell at this no-frills Flushing counter, a Cantonese cheong fun spot tucked into a minimall off Roosevelt Avenue. The noodle sheets come out nearly translucent, rolled around pork, shrimp, or egg to order. The New York Times gave it a Critic's Pick, which tracks: there are very few places in the city where the rice noodle itself is this clearly the point.