The right attitude

The latest to join the capital’s pantheon of dim sum iconoclasts is this swish joint in a tricky to find street behind St Paul’s.

Like the populist Ping Pong and exotic Yauatcha, it too serves the little snacks and dumplings after the traditional afternoon cut-off point. And that makes me very happy: I love the myriad little surprises of good dim sum.

D.Sum2 (Dee Sum Two? D’sumtwo? Dee Sum Squared?) stands out because of the charm of its staff – a million miles from the curmudgeonly old-school Chinatown set-ups. Here, nothing is too much trouble – sit where you like, drink what you like, eat what you like. So you can perch at the bar with a Martini and a basket of steamed shrimp har gow or go for a full lobster and Chablis blowout at a linen-clothed table.

We choose the bar, informal and great for people-watching. A succession of little dishes arrives, some first class – magnificently flaky pork puffs filled with sweet, rich meat; fat prawns wrapped in a crisp-fried tofu skin; an ethereally fluffy char siu bao (steamed pork bun). Others – lumpy, oafish scallop siu mai; xiao long bao, the famous Shanghai soup dumpling, from which no fragrant broth issues at the poke of a chopstick – are less impressive. But positives outweigh negatives: we like D’sumsquared anyway.

Dim.Sum2
14 Paternoster Row, EC4