Banquet 88, London E1: ‘Sweet, rich, fiery and moreish’ – restaurant review

I turn up solo and brace myself to be dumped by the cleaning supplies cupboard, but instead the staff treat me like an off-duty empress

Perched in between a Zizzi, a Côte and a Slug & Lettuce at the far end of St Katharine Docks in Ye Olde Tower of London tourist-land, Banquet 88 feels like something of an enigmatic Asian cousin: it has a sedate frontage, sparse, functional decor with not an ounce of chintz nor an ounce of modernism, or even much of a nod towards comfort. There’s sake cherry foie gras and egg tofu with spicy pork floss and bottles of Fei Tswei Magma chardonnay from Ningxia on the menu, and a distinct dearth of spice bag chips and Mateus rosé, and they’d very much like you to bring a crowd to try the baby cabbage salad with Jinhua ham and century eggs or the Teochew-style poached fish with caviar.

With 140 seats and a second sizeable dining room upstairs, this Chinese mega-restaurant from the Good Fortune Club group is especially suited to parties of six or more who are in the market for black truffle abalone siu mai, Wagyu beef thousand-layer pastry, XO turnip cake and deep-fried taro croquettes with caviar. Then again, Banquet 88 seems very much more like a restaurant that’s waiting for the Chinese embassy to move into the Royal Mint across the road – Beijing bought the site for £255m – should those plans ever survive the courts. Perhaps then they’ll finally get to use the 50-person private dining room.

I turn up for lunch solo, just one small woman with a limited stomach capacity, for a tumble around the menu’s 200-odd dishes. I brace myself to be dumped somewhere by the cleaning supplies cupboard, but instead the staff treat me like an off-duty empress, allotting me a vast table overlooking the marina, where I peruse the dim sum list while playing Scrabble on my phone with a stranger in Missouri.

On the list: black sesame egg yolk custard buns, those marvellous gems that ooze molten salted yolk when you bite into them; chicken feet with taro in black bean sauce; and morel mushroom jade siu mai. The menu leans towards Cantonese cuisine, but also wanders across Sichuan, Shanghai, Teochew and Beijing, with a sprinkling of Malaysia and Vietnam in there, too, in the form of satay chicken skewers and pork and prawn spring rolls.

I order vegetarian dumplings wrapped in dragonfruit, which come on perforated paper in a pretty, yellow-rimmed bamboo steamer, and they’re like little pink, puckered and almost translucent boobs filled with a mulchy, cabbagey, daikony, herby mix and served with a satisfyingly deep-red, Sichuan-style chilli dip. These dumplings are earthy, slightly bitter, gelatinous and hugely satisfying. Next up, hot-and-sour sesame aubergine from the appetisers menu, which comes in a scalloped white bowl and features sliced aubergine in the lightest tempura batter, deep-fried and smothered in sesame-rich hotness, with an abundance of black and white sesame seeds and a tangle of spring onion. It is sweet, rich, fiery and moreish.

A bowl of Banquet 88’s signature pickled radish appears, looking as if it’s been steeped in Rubicon’s sparkling guava juice. It’s arranged in uniform chunks of Jenga-like blocks, and it is crunchy, fresh and heavily perfumed. Gloriously red mapo tofu comes with ground beef and yet more Sichuan fire. The tofu is soft and silky, the sauce numbing and fiery, with a nice rolling burr of heat. “Are you sure you want that?” the server asked when I ordered it. He searched for the word, before settling on: “It is hot.” I, meanwhile, had been thinking about that silken tofu mouthfeel. “Wobbly?” I said. “Slimy, I guess?” Yes, he replied, but too hot and too slimy – British people don’t like it. I contentedly eat my tofu with a pretty basket of steamed rice and more of that turbo-sweet radish. Around me sit academic-looking British men with Chinese wives, as well as large tables of tour groups fresh from their visits to the Tower of London, possibly reflecting on our historical torture and the sad tales of demented polar bears that were once kept captive there.

Pudding was mango and pomelo sago in a tiny, flower-shaped glass bowl with a gold rim. Elegant flecks of pink pomelo floated among a handful of sago, and it’s an unexpected total delight: not too heavy, just a little treat of sugary, tropical joy.

As I pay up and walk away, I notice that Banquet 88 is open on Christmas Day, which is fabulous for all those people who cannot face sticking a turkey in the oven and who’d much prefer some dim sum instead, as well as maybe a glass or two of champagne and a round of custard buns to finish. Right now, this is a vast restaurant just waiting to be populated. I’m more than happy to have made a start.

Banquet 88 Unit 2, Commodity Quay, London E1, 020-3951 4389. Open all week, noon-10pm. From about £40 a head à la carte; set menus £38-68, all plus drinks and service