The best bao buns in London

BAO Soho is the original venue and (unsurprisingly) serves great Bao buns! In fact, the menu is centred around these buns especially (the clue’s in the name). Some delicious examples include the Confit Pork Baos and the Fried Chicken Baos. If you want another dish with your selection of bao, you’ll also find things like Pig Blood Cake, House Salad and XO Beef Butter Sweetcorn. Drinks-wise, there’s wine on tap and house cocktails made utilising Asian ingredients. Quite the combination for a good evening spent eating tasty food.

Operating as a restaurant and takeaway option, Daddy Bao offers delicious bao options, including chicken, pork belly and beef brisket. Each is marinated or garnished with a unique method and set of ingredients. This place also serves mushrooms and tofu bao for the vegans and vegetarians. The menu has sharing dishes including classics like edamame and pork dumplings in case you are showing up with friends, a specials section, brunch section and quality desserts like miso chocolate brownie. There is also a separate and very unique drinks menu, too. You could order a Pao Pao (lychee, apple fizz, lemon), mango wen (coconut milk, mango, lime) or a regular old Coke. The choice is yours.

This restaurant’s chef team are true pioneers when it comes to bao recipes. Not only do they offer exceptional traditional options, but they also offer ice cream bao desserts! The hot food bao options include Wagyu beef, grilled salmon steak and 7up braised pork belly! Don’t worry though, vegans – you won’t be left out. There’s also mushroom, Panko jackfruit and crispy tofu options for you. As for the rest of the menu, there are lots of traditional dishes available, including – but not limited to – edamame beans, Thai-style homemade sausages and chicken karaage. If these dishes sound good to Yuu, you should visit this restaurant.

The Banh Bao Brothers’ menu consists of various side dishes, with recommendations of ordering three-four of them. The bao options are karaage chicken, pulled beef, braised lamb, pork belly and mushroom for vegans. If you want to compliment your bao dishes with some others for a little variety, you can choose between a lot of the traditional options you are likely becoming familiar with, including popcorn chicken and prawn crackers. Cocktail lovers won’t want to give this venue a miss as the drink options predominantly consist of household names like Long Islands, Blue Hawaii’s and Old Fashioned’s with some unique ones thrown in for good measure. Two of these are the “Asian Pornstar” made with vodka, lychee liqueur, midori, triple sec and lime juice and the “Japanese Iced Tea” made with midori, vodka, gin, rum, tequila, triple sec, lime juice and lemonade. There is also a sizeable wine list if you would prefer some plonk instead.

After all this bao talk, here’s a similar alternative. Bintang Restaurant serves toasted pandesals stuffed with ice cream! This gives you a dedicated bao-style dessert option with the venue offering some unique and delicious ice cream flavours as well, like Filipino purple yam, and Filipino lime and black coconut. Sound appetising? It certainly does to us!
Bintang Restaurant has a unique list of Silogs (all-day breakfast skillets), perfect for carnivorous foodies. Tapsilog is thin cuts of sirloin beef steak, and longsilog is smoked, sweet, marinated beef and lamb sausage. Most of the mains are available with vegetarian or vegan options like the Bintang Curry and Ulek Curry. These dishes contain tasty ingredients like coconut milk, lemongrass, lime leaf and scotch bonnet, so any herbivore reader can rest easy and eat well too.
The drinks menu once again distinguishes Bintang Restaurant from its competitors as it includes bubble teas and homemade sodas. Some of the bubble tea flavours are brown sugar mudflip milk, calamansi fruit tea, guava and lime fruit tea, and passionfruit tea. Delicious all round.