Imperial China in Hertsmere

Friday night dinner instant 5 star

Security for this building sadly

Sadly it is closed now, one of my favourite place to dine, now i need to travel central if I want decent dim sum.

Sadly it is now CLOSED, I believe there was a fure in the kitchens. Went for dim sum, one of the few places outside Chinatown that does it. Always has Chinese people eating over the weekends - which is considered "a good place to eat" if Chinese people go to eat there. The chinese staff are brusque, and it's nice to see other nationalities working there. Food is a bit hit and miss, as usual it depends on the choices you make. A la carte menu is extensive as well a good dim sum options, during the day.

Good food , service , etc unfortunately the heating was not working. The restaurant was so very cold. This spoiled our dinner completely

Delicious Chinese food. Great ambience and friendly staff

Great restaurant. Hope it can reopen soon

Great restaurant. Hope it can reopen soon

In December 2022, I went to the restaurant and ate a lot of food including stir-fried beef noodles, shrimp dumplings, half roasted duck, rice noodle rolls, and so on. I felt that the taste was not as good as the last time I dined there, and the quality had decreased. Moreover, it was 10-20% more expensive than last time. The stir-fried beef noodles were too dry and had very little beef, and the half roasted duck did not seem like a full half, which was very disappointing. The tea charge was £1.8 per person, and there was an additional 12.5% discretionary service fee. I will not come back again as it was not good value for money.

Profound oasis of PUKKA Cantonese...and yet today, 11th Feb, went past and a rubbish skip had been placed in the entrance ..so it's looking permanently shut. The Dim Sum in the daytime always had a slew of folks in.... and mostly Chinese people... the best indicator. So sad if it's shut.

Friendly and quick service. Would visit again.

We visited this establishment for a birthday lunch. Despite making a reservation we had to wait longer for a table. If you have to wait then I don't know why a reservation is required, organisation in this place is in shambles. Not a very pleasant atmosphere, wait staff look annoyed the moment you ask something. So noisy and waiters look like they are in utter chaos. Food was average, dim sum was the only saving grace. When the bill came we realised the staff has made choices for us and charged us eg : we ordered half chicken and a full chicken is ordered for us. Despite having told staff about this, we decided to pay just to get out of the hell hole. Be mindful when they don't want to help language barrier is used to mask this. Difficulty parking at busy times. When we went on a Sunday lunch time there was no space to park so have atleast 30 minutes to find parking. Overall a poorly run restaurant, relying solely on regular patrons who visit for the dim sum. I sincerely hope the dimsum chefs are well compensated for keeping this place in business single handedly.

Quite disappointed for the price we’ve paid for 2 people (1 main + side). They don’t even give prawn crackers. Food was ok but portion were small.

Lovely authentic restaurant with great interior decor. The menu is large with a vast range of options, including loads of vegetarian dishes. The restaurant itself is very big so it works perfectly for large groups but also perfect for small groups as you don't feel squashed in - this also means you're guaranteed a table when you visit!

High-quality dishes, honed actions of the staff. Sometimes, sometimes, when busy, the speed of service and delivery suffers. There are places with a view of the river. Delicious food. From different types of smelt, the classics still win. The atmosphere is like a chain cafe, without individuality, everything is in the common room. The choice of dishes is large, from Georgian to European and Asian, as it is loved in almost all establishments

Had a Chinese New Year meal. Great service, great food, and great atmosphere.

The restuarant is poorly managed chaos, with viciously bad service. We waited 40+ minutes for dim sum, only find out that our entire order was given to the wrong table who proceeded to eat our food. The manager refused to tell us this in the beginning and only after questioning did he admit this. In total we waited over 1 hour for our full order to arrive. During this time the waiter proceeded to ignore our table clearly not wanting to help us as they knew what was going on. We never had our tea refilled, and we never got any spoons despite asking 3 times. At this point we gave up trying to actually enjoy the meal and we just wanted to get out. Once the bill came we decided not to pay the discretionary service charge and the waiter refused to allow us to pay anything other than the full service charge. An argument ensued and it left us feeling really upset by the whole experience. The food is not bad but the service is just awful. Don't pay to suffer.

Lovely dim sum. Drove past this place for years, finally tried it and have been back twice already.

Lovely food but they’re quite busy so the service isn’t always great

We had a lovely meal here, we ordered far too much in the end. Staff great we enjoyed food

Been here a few times over 2022 and have enjoyed various dishes. Tofu and aubergine hot pot, dim sum, meat hors d'oeuvre, crispy duck and salt and pepper have been my fav. Plenty of tables but does get busy at peak times.

I was surprised to see long queues at the opening of the restaurant. Probably because of Chinese new year approaching. Food is good but I have taken one star away because of slow service and high price. Restaurant is nice and big. You can rent halls for private parties. Overall it’s a good restaurant with good food.

BAD ATTTITUDE WHEN MAKING RESERVATION. I booked for 5 people for lunch. The guy over the phone said only 6 people or above can make booking. Then I thought I could invite one more of my friend to go so I amend the booking as for 6 people, the guy over the phone said "BUT YOU JUST TOLD ME FIVE, I won't accept your booking" then he hang up. Very unprofessional and unhelpful. AVOID THIS PLACE AT ALL COSTS.

We waited more than one hour for the main course. All we could get was even not a sincere apology.

Horrible service. Some of the ladies working as waitresses were rude. We don’t expect such treatment especially when food is good. Do make sure that it is taken care of

The food quality is amazing and the portions are good enough. The place has a parking lot. I suggest the seafood menu

Me and my family have been eating at this place for years! I know it is so important for businesses to have positive reviews. Dim sum is fantastic and even on busy days where we’ve had to wait 25 mins for a table ( we didn’t book in advance) the service was great!!

A very convenient location for parking. The atmosphere is good, tables and chairs are not too crowded. We had dim sum, most of the dishes are good. We love the lava custard bun, egg tarts and the fried glutinous rice dumpling (咸水角) a lot. Zha leung (steamed rice roll wrapped fried dough) was not very nice. Restaurant is quite busy and we don't get much service, however when the staff came over, they are all very friendly.

Mediocre portions. Food very average. Waiters rude.

Very polite staff. Food was amazing

Good location with ample parking. Dim sum was good along with Wat Tan Prawns.

Delicious food, and a beautiful restaurant! There are consistent refills of tea, and the food is served really nicely. You MUST try the Crispy prawn curry rolls - it's some of the best food I've ever eaten. I will be going back as soon as I can!

Food was good and tasty, but considering the location and how the place looks from outside including the name Imperial China, the inside wasn't what I expected!

Nice food and great service from the staff - Especially Stanley :-)

We went on a Sunday, late afternoon and it was a much pleasant dining experience with not many congregate by entrance waiting for tables. Food was cooked to perfection, roast duck was superb and dimsum was good. However, a second visit on Saturday lunch time was a different story. Staff were apparently over stretched but were able to keep their professionalism. Quality of cooking slipped slightly, roast duck was a bit fatty, possibly not drained well. The rice was not as dry. I would strongly recommend avoiding peak times.

Great food. Helpful and committed staff. Great place for an event with big groups.

Really good and friendly service. First time visiting, but we will definitely be coming back again.

This place slaps! We have either this option or Golden Dragon in Colindale for our local dimsum place, and this place is our go-to. You have to get here by 12 unless you want to wait an hour on the weekends though! We got here at 12.30 on a Saturday and waited until 1.30. People who got here at 1.30 were told not to queue- that’s how popular it is! Highly, highly recommend their egg tarts. It is out of this world good, I don’t know what they put in it. The service is super friendly as well, despite being crazy busy.

Decent Chinese dimsum. Plenty of parking space

Attentive service from two waiting staff. Helped to cater for my dairy intolerant friend. Delicious food especially their speciality dishes. Definitely recommended.

Wait time was over 1hr Communicating with staff was a struggle cos they struggled with English Food didn’t have taste.

On a stretch of the A41 just within the M25

Excellent food, dim sum, noodles, main dishes. Large tables for two/ three families. There are some signature dishes and dim sum, yum

Went for a birthday dinner. The place is big with lots of tables. And it was quite busy too - it being a Friday evening. The service is what one would expect in a chinese restaurant- formal, super fast and efficient. The food was so-so. The dumpling platter (both vegetarian and sea food) was tasty. But it was surprising to see dumplings being served with no accompaniment such as soya sauce. The Tom yum seafood soup was spot on. The main courses were a bit of a disappointment. The crispy noodles were very bland and tasteless. Similarly the diced vegetable rice was also bland. The Chengdu spicy chicken was too SPICY - blew our socks off and this masked the overpowered the actual taste of the dish. Overall a very mixed experience

Pan fried noodles in white sauce with shredded chicken and vegetables was the best I have had for a very long time. Superb thick noodles too.

Bad service, table was unbalanced, food was ok-ish.

Best place for Dim Sum north of London. Try avoiding the Sunday lunchtime rush

Good food with excellent service, easy to park

Very nice ace to go and have a meal

Real authentic Southern Chinese food. It’s the most authentic you will get outside of most Chinatowns. Good selection of Dim Sum. At weekends you will see Chinese families eating here. A good sign. Don’t expect 5* service and you’ll be fine. It was reported closed June 2019 Reopened in 2021. Standard has dropped a bit. I hear the chefs were not up to pre2019 standards. The dim sums are fine. The evening meals are not up to scratch. My first evening meal (Sept 2022) since 2019, disappointed.

I am going to have keep rating this place 5 until they get their well deserved google rating! Wonderful delicious food and great service as usual.

Hi, we’ve just had dinner at Imperial China (Watford)and we were shocked at being told that any take-away boxes (after the first two) would need to be charged. This extra charge was not explained to us at the beginning before we settled down for our meal. Other customers (excluding ourselves) who were dining near us were also shocked at the extra charge for their take-away boxes too. We don’t mind paying for these boxes, but there was no courtesy warning about this extra charge during billing. The table next to ours had their extra boxes added to their bill without being told about the charge (after they have already paid for their food). There needs to be better communication regarding this cost. The manager was quite unfriendly about it when we enquired about the reason behind the extra cost. The food was okay, but don’t order the potato cake, because it was basically garlic bread.

Update 2022 - met a friend here for a random Tuesday dinner. One thing I've always liked about this place is the speed of service, but this time it was slow and we had to double check that the remaining food we ordered was still coming. The food is still top notch! Update 2021- Spent a lovely Friday evening here. I heard that the management changed, but still no complaints from me. Staff very helpful, service quick and speedy, food is still out of this world. Will be back and more often 2019 Had one of the best Saturday food nights ever at this place. Everything was amazing from the service, the staff and the food. There is no other place around that is better than this.

We Stood 10 minutes to be seated and we walked in to see if we could speak to someone , restaurant was half empty , after 10 more minutes No greeting or acknowledgement of us being there, 2-3 employees all looked like zombies , finally made eye contact and just ignored us like we were invisible, tried to get the waiters attention many times again but we were just ignored . We saw a customer who was on a table chase a waiter then we knew we had to leave ….. Never seen customer service as bad as this . Half empty restaurant and no customer service. Appalling

Make sure you book regardless of table for 2 or more. Phoned prior to book and they said I didn’t need to. When we walked in they turned us away as fully booked! Sort you system out. Great shame. We off to Good Earth in Mill Hill as they saved our evening!

Great food, but difficult to eat with chopsticks off a plate. No bowls! Some starters arrived after the mains. Nice atmosphere though. Also ordered takeaway to take home for kids, but they forgot to put iur order in and the kitchen was closed by the time they remembered.

If you're looking for quality, and quantity (portions are excellent) - Imperial China will tick all your boxes. Tasty, authentic food. Enough said. (Forgot to take photos as food was that good!)

Good food, good service, good environment. Will come back again.

Stopped here for a quick supper with the kids on the way home from a family day out at Aldenham Country Park! Lovely big car park, VERY friendly and helpful staff. Wonderful big portions, incredibly tasty and authentic too! Highly rate and would unreservedly recommend this place to others !

Good restaurant. Food and service was good. Plenty of parking.

Interior is nice and staff are friendly however the food is terrible.. very low cost ingredients used... the beef was chewy you could not swallow it and very bland taste on all.. we ordered the set B menu for 2 people. Also very expensive with high service charge. Will not be returning. We wasted most of it ! Gave me a very funny taste after and upset stomach we both had Ps. What also put me and my friend off was all the flys around the restaurant witch was going on the food.

Very good food. Comparable to Hong Kong dim sum. Variety and good quality.

wow, the food was so nice, I was pleasantly surprised

Hugely popular restaurant for dim sum, under new management, with delicious dishes including some unique ones, e.g. kimchi prawn dumplings, seaweed prawn dumplings, prawn cheung fun with crispy rolls. Good vegetarian selection too.

Food was great. We turned up VERY late (9.15pm) and they stop serving at 9.30pm. Hiwever, theybstill managed to get us a table and served us straight away so we had enough time to order prior to the kitchen closing. Must emphasise how food the food was as well.

Very overpriced, I’m sorry to say. The staff member that collected payment was very rude. He argued with us because we asked to split the bill between four of us. It may have also been because we had asked for the discretionary service charge to be removed, given that we received nothing which resembled service.

Large car park and atmosphere was good along with the food

Great service and the Staff are a credit to the restaurant. Our first visit but will not be our last

Very tasty and friendly service. Best experience in a Chinese restaurant in Watford so far, haven't found better outside London yet.

Nice restaurant. Staff are accommodating. I went in a very large group and I don't think the restaurant/staff are able to cater for large groups well. Lots of wrong food delivered to the table and duplicating of orders. Which we were then charged for unfortunately and had to talk to staff about afterwards. The food itself was tasty, however I did feel it was overpriced. I think if I return, I will go in a small group or as a couple.

Waiter is so rude. 侍應十分無禮貌。老公因為身體不適伏在桌面小睡一會約10分鐘，我仍在進食，侍應過來話佢地開門做生意，咁樣訓教令佢地場面唔好睇，阻止我老公伏著休息。之後我進食其間，多次問“食完啦呵？”甚有催促我地離開的意思，我仲有小小未食完，我地坐左都不足一小時。實在沒有禮貌，本來想點甜品，都唔想再點了，我們不是坐得耐，餐廳仍有空枱，為何催促客人呢。其實伏著枱睡一會又沒有多難睇，而且我們坐的位置都穩閉，在兩條柱中間。

For people who can read Chinese, 好食

Amazing food so it's always very busy on weekends, make sure you go either before 12 or later at 2. Despite the place being completely full the staff still give great service

Pros: Good food, authentic food Cons: small sized dishes, 12.5% service charge, over priced food! Rice was £22.80 for 7ppl , small veg dish £13

Good food and great service. We were served by Ming, who understood our requests and customised the dishes. We had Sesame Prawn Toast, Chilli Pepper Fish and golden prawn fry for starters, followed by veg chowmein, chicken chowmein, pak choi, Kung pao chicken and Shanghai spicy fish for Mains. Each and every dish was authentic and really flavourful. We thoroughly enjoyed and definitely coming back for sure. ‐----------------- Amazing service everytime we come back here.

This is my first time coming to the restaurant. The environment us nice and has plenty of parking space. About the food, the dim sums are very delicious and authentic. Also, the place is located next to Costco, so you might do shopping as well as filling up your car.

Amazing lunch with my family during M1. We planned to come here and enjoy some dim sum and we were Asians so we do know how good the food is. Also there were dessert of custard egg tarts and literally I could really recommend it to everyone who wants to have some Chinese food and yep, come and get it here.

Visited with another family on 12/08/2022. Restaurant half empty in contrast to previous visits. Had to make multiple attempts to gain the attention of any of the waiters despite many of them walking around and pretended to have a hearing deficit. Orders came amazingly quickly but were not what we ordered. Shanghai chicken ("chef's spl") turned out to be some other weird, bland dish bathed in litres of soy sauce. The waiter even had a finger dipped in the bowl of rice. Chicken was hard to find in "chicken noodles". On top of all this rubbish service, 12.5% discretionary tax was added to the bill (whose discretion?). And one of the guests I invited had an upset stomach soon after. Maybe the health inspectors should pay a visit. I hope this place closes down soon.

Don't like way menu is worded says price it as pp by it if you don't lokat it properly you make and think idinner is for two people not per person it just says pp

Family dinner for 8 for 50th birthday celebrations. It was fantastic! The waitress was very tentative and engaging. Food was a plenty; 6 of us had set menu which was very good and plentiful. Very busy Saturday evening and will certainly be returning. Ample parking on site.

Disgusting service Decent food But one of the dishes had fried fly cooked Won’t be returning due the general manager’s attitude

Much better than the establishment on this site under previous ownership. Pleasant ambience and staff, good variety on menu, with good portions. A range of starters and main courses including fish, meat, vegetables, rice and noodles were all enjoyed with a bottle of wine. At £240 for four people, it was a bit pricey.

Amazing food and the staff are amazing and very attentive

Amazing service, staff and food. Very clean restaurant.

Traditional Hong Kong restaurant, high food quality, supreme service standard, cosy environment. Pleasure guaranteed

Average. There are some good dishes and some really average food. Wouldn't go back

Great food, tasty, good portions and price! Look forward to going back! Food was amazing

Lovely place, lovely food and lovely staff. Would definitely Recommend.

First time there good meal with good staff

Always great food and really speedy service. Particularly recommend the dim sum.

I've been coming to Imperial China for many years.The service is excellent,the staff are very friendly.the food is superb,a wide range of dishes from a very comprehensive menu.there is also a large selection of Vegetarian dishes.

Loved everything about our evening meal for 6 of us included 6 & 7 year olds. They looked after us very well, tried to help us order the right amount and everything was cooked to perfection and tasting delicious.

The beat chinese restaurant I've been too. Nice staff and what I really like is the depth of flavour that's in the food, most chinese takeaways I've been to don't have this much depth of flavour. It is expensive but tasty, I think it was worth it

Some dishes a little salty but overall better than a lot of other Chinese restaurants.

We love各种煲here. Cantonese style Chinese food.

Lovely Dim Sum. It's where the Chinese go to eat. Recommended.

First time visit. We found it very friendly and very good food. The staff were brilliant 👏

Great food. Pleasant and welcoming staff

Very authentic Chinese restaurant with great service and friendly staff.

Very clean in every meaning the food was delicious child friendly highly recommend and will definitely be coming back. Prices are reasonable as well.