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.
