Lychee Oriental

Jimmy Lee competed on BBC's Great British Menu and judged Channel 4's My Kitchen Rules beside Prue Leith and Michael Caines, and the kitchen he actually cooks in is a listed building on Mitchell Street where every stock and sauce is made from scratch (venue).

Why go

Lee took Chef Personality of the Year at the 2018 Scottish Food Awards, out of a field that included Graham Campbell, Mark Greenaway, Neil Forbes, Gary MacLean and Ally McGrath (Glasgowist). The restaurant has traded since 2015 and was refitted in 2019 with "interiors inspired by the restaurants and coffee houses of Chongqing" (Glasgowist). What that pedigree looks like on the plate is a house list built around slow and dry-heat technique rather than a wok-only card: two claypots, twice cooked pork belly, and duck done three ways, roasted with mushrooms in oyster sauce, pulled for pancakes, or served with lychees in plum sauce. Prices run GBP 13.50 to GBP 24.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the twice cooked pork belly at GBP 16.50. Boiling then frying is the whole Sichuan argument for that cut, and it is the dish on this list that most exposes a kitchen. Then the roast duck with lychees in plum sauce at GBP 19.50, since the fruit is the restaurant's own name.
• Avoid: going in looking for Scottish-Chinese crossover. The current speciality list names no Scottish ingredient ref.

What locals & experts say

• Glasgowist, Paul Trainer (21 May 2018): "The highly converted Chef Personality of the Year at this years Scottish Food Awards was awarded to Glasgow Chef Jimmy Lee," at a restaurant that "prides itself on traditional Chinese cooking techniques and natural, fresh ingredients." ref
• Jimmy Lee, in his own words: "there is an incredible amount of hard work that goes on behind the scenes every day to make the best tasting Chinese food in Scotland." ref
• Glasgowist (1 July 2020), on standing: Lee's "stylish Cantonese restaurant Lychee Oriental will reopen on Wednesday 15th July," the outlet's shorthand for the place across four separate pieces. ref
• Unpinned house claims: the venue lists Best Chinese Restaurant in Scotland, a Sunday Times Top 25 Chinese in the UK placing for 2018, Glasgow Live's Best Chinese Restaurant 2019 and Glasgow Awards Best Oriental Restaurant 2018. No awarding body page was checked, so none is counted here. ref
• Food hygiene, checked: Pass, inspected 18 June 2026. ref
• Local rec: Jeff's save, calling it iconic and naming the chef. REAL, and the chef's surname is Lee.

Good to know

• Timing: lunch and dinner service on Mitchell Street, a minute off Buchanan Street.
• Booking: through the venue's own site, and worth it at weekends.
• Dietary: a dedicated gluten-free menu is published as its own document. Nothing on the site addresses cross-contamination, so treat it as a gluten-free list rather than a celiac protocol.
• Sites: two rooms trade as Lychee. This one is 59 Mitchell Street in the city centre, the 2015 original, and everything above describes it. Lychee Southside is 67 Kilmarnock Road, which opened in April 2025 on the old Salt & Chilli site with 55 covers over two levels and the same house-specialities card (DRAM). Nothing on this page has been tested there.
• Beyond that: Lee designed the menu for Shanghai Teahouse in Bothwell, which opened in February 2019, so his cooking exists somewhere he does not own.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: "An iconic Chinese fine dining restaurant. Try Scottish interpretations of Chinese food. Famous UK chef Jimmy Lin"

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

could-visit — RE-CUT 2026-08-01 from should-visit, and the reason is that the case here is a curriculum vitae rather than a meal. Jimmy Lee is the most publicly visible Chinese chef in Scotland, Chef Personality of the Year at the 2018 Scottish Food Awards ahead of Graham Campbell, Mark Greenaway, Neil Forbes and Gary MacLean, a Great British Menu competitor and a My Kitchen Rules judge, and the house list at Mitchell Street runs claypots, twice cooked pork belly and three duck preparations at GBP 13.50 to GBP 24 on stocks made in house. All of that is real and none of it is a report on the cooking. Nobody in the approved register has written about how the food tastes, the newest source on this room is from 2020, the flagship award is a personality prize six editions old, and four further accolades are the venue's own unchecked claims. In April 2025 Lee opened a second Glasgow room running the same specialities card, which spreads a chef-owner across two kitchens without any practitioner pointing at either. Weigh craft first and this is a competent, well-priced city-centre Cantonese room with a well-known cook, which is where could-visit sits: go if you are passing, and skip it without guilt.