6 ranked
The best Chinese restaurants in Pittsburgh
Squirrel Hill's stretch of Forbes and Murray does the heavy lifting: Sichuan counters, Cantonese banquets, a couple of hand-pulled noodle rooms. Order past the American-Chinese menu and this is one of the most rewarding cheap eats corridors in any US city.
- 1
Squirrel Hill · $$ · No. 6 of 157 overall
Wei Zhu's Sichuan cooking is some of the best Chinese food in the country, full stop. Strip-mall setting, transcendent food. Order off the Chinese menu.
Order: Mapo tofu & cumin lamb
- 2
Squirrel Hill · $$ · No. 31 of 157 overall
Watch them fold soup dumplings through the glass. That's the draw, and they deliver. Expect a wait at peak.
Order: Soup dumplings pleated behind the glass
- 3
South Side · $$ · No. 92 of 157 overall
The Flushing soup-dumpling juggernaut planted its first Pennsylvania flag in SouthSide Works, and the xiao long bao are the real deal. Thin-skinned, broth-heavy, scalding in the best way. It's a chain, sure, but a Michelin-recommended one, and it instantly out-dumplings most of the city. Just mind the wait at peak.
Order: Xiao long bao (pork soup dumplings)
- 4
Squirrel Hill · $ · No. 102 of 157 overall
Taiwanese comfort food done properly: beef noodle soup, three-cup chicken, scallion pancakes. Small, busy, and much better than the strip of storefronts around it suggests.
Order: Beef noodle soup
- 5
Downtown · $$ · No. 130 of 157 overall
The last trace of downtown's old Chinatown. Old-school Cantonese-American in a room full of history; go for the nostalgia as much as the food.
Order: Old-school Cantonese-American classics
- 6
Squirrel Hill · $ · No. 155 of 157 overall
Murray Avenue Sichuan that goes properly heavy on the peppercorn. Not the city's best Chinese, but it is open late and it does not flinch.
Order: Mapo tofu, numbing
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Every list on this site is cut from the same board: 157 restaurants scored 1-5 by one critic, where nothing can be bought. How the ratings work →