Restaurants
Long-running Cantonese banquet restaurant on the second floor of London Plaza. Big round tables, live seafood tanks and a dim sum service that starts early. Richmond families book it for weddings and birthdays as often as for a regular lunch.
Groups are the point here, and that shapes everything about how a room like this operates. Tables are round because a round table lets ten people reach the same dishes. Service arrives in sequence for the table rather than as courses per person. Tanks near the front of a Cantonese seafood house are not decoration, and the whole ordering process assumes sharing. Anyone who has not eaten this way before should come with someone who has.
Empire is on the second floor of London Plaza, on the City Centre stretch of No. 3 Road rather than up among the Golden Village malls. That distinction matters mostly for getting there. The Canada Line runs the length of No. 3 Road, and this part of the corridor is walkable in a way that Richmond generally is not. Office and residential towers have filled in around it over the past fifteen years, alongside the older plazas that were there long before them.
Weekend late mornings are the busiest window in every large Cantonese room in this city, and holiday weekends are worse again. Going with a group is worth planning rather than improvising, and phoning ahead with a number is standard practice in this category. Two people can eat well in a room built for twelve, though the format rewards four or more, because the pleasure of it comes from contrast between dishes rather than from any single plate. Order across the categories instead of ordering one dish each, and leave somebody in charge of deciding when the table has enough food.
In the City Centre neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other restaurants and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
Chiu Chow and Cantonese specialist on Westminster Highway, walkable from the Canada Line. Dim sum at lunch plus Chiu Chow classics such as cold marinated goose and oyster omelette that are genuinely hard to find elsewhere in Richmond.
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Shanghainese restaurant on Westminster Highway where you can watch xiao long bao being pleated behind glass. Soup dumplings, pan-fried buns, braised pork and hand-pulled noodles. Busy at lunch and worth booking ahead on weekends.
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Casual Shanghainese spot on Westminster Highway known around Richmond for soup dumplings and pan-fried pork buns at prices that stay reasonable. Small room, quick turnover, and portions built for sharing across the table.
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The Richmond room of the long-established Kirin group, on Westminster Highway near No. 3 Road. Refined Cantonese cooking with some northern Chinese dishes, live seafood, and a dim sum lunch that skews lighter than most in the area.
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Steakhouse on Ackroyd Road working with Prime, wagyu and in-house dry-aged cuts, paired with sake and cocktails as well as wine. A quieter, higher-end alternative to the chain steakhouses along the No. 3 Road corridor.
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A Korean noodle and dumpling shop on Westminster Highway that makes its own mandu and sells them frozen by the bag. Bibimbap, japchae and kimchi stew round out a short menu. Small, cheap and fast, with a steady weekday lunch crowd.
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