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Since imperial times, Beijing has drawn citizens from all corners of China, and the country's economic boom has only accelerated the culinary diversity of the capital. These days, diners can find food from the myriad cuisines of far-flung regions of China, as well as just about every kind of international food.
Highlights include rare fungi and flowers from Yunnan, chili-strewn Hunan cooking from Mao’s home province, Tibetan yak and tsampa (barley flour), mutton kebabs and grilled flatbreads from Xinjiang, numbingly spicy Sichuan cuisine, and chewy noodles from Shaanxi. And then there are ethnic foods from all over, with some—notably Italian, Japanese and Korean—in abundance.
You can spend as little as $5 per person for a decent meal or $100 and up on a lavish banquet. The variety of venues is also part of the fun, with five-star hotel dining rooms, holes-in-the-wall, and refurbished courtyard houses all represented. Reservations are always a good idea, especially for higher-end places, so ask your hotel to book you a table.
Beijingers tend to eat dinner around 6 pm, and many local restaurants will have closed their kitchens by 9 pm, though places that stay open until the wee hours aren’t hard to find. Tipping is not the custom although some larger, international restaurants will add a 15% service charge to the bill, as do five-star hotel restaurants. Be aware before you go out that small and medium venues only take cash payments or local bank cards; more established restaurants usually accept credit cards.
Yanjing, the local beer, together with the ubiquitous Tsingtao, is available everywhere in Beijing. A growing number of imported beer brands have entered the market, and Beijing has a burgeoning craft beer scene of its own. And now many Chinese restaurants now have extensive wine menus.
At Beijing's only outlet of a successful Singaporean restaurant brand, you'll find some of the city's most reliable Cantonese, a cooking style not particularly well represented this far north. Weekdays see wheeler-dealers closing deals over abalone and sea cucumber, while the weekends bustle with families from Hong Kong and Singapore lingering over dim sum and endless pots of tea. Plenty of pricey seafood dishes are on the menu, but you can opt for the less expensive stir-fry dishes and dim sum.
Beijing's traditional courtyard houses provide an exquisite setting at this elegant hotel restaurant. The walls are constructed from gray hutong bricks reclaimed from centuries-old siheyuan that have gone the way of the wrecking ball. Pricey seafood items like abalone and lobster are balanced by affordable and delicious dim sum (especially the dim sum prix-fixe lunch with tea, for RMB 88). The menu is mostly Cantonese, but you can also get a traditional Peking duck. If only the place had a little more atmosphere (and customers), it could be up there with the city's best.
A gloriously gaudy atmosphere is the main draw of this 24-hour dim sum restaurant. It serves all the classics as well as a "pollution menu" featuring dishes that supposedly counteract the effects of Beijing's smog.
Bright and bustling on any day of the week, Lei Garden really packs them in on Sunday afternoons for dim sum amid glamorous surroundings. The pan-fried turnip cake is juicy and topped with generous amounts of grated veggies, and the shrimp dumplings are bursting with sweet plump shrimp and crunchy bamboo shoots. A platter of roast pork, with bite-size pieces laced with buttery fat and capped with crisp, crunchy skin, hits the spot. Private dining rooms offer sanctuary from the crowd.
With a dozen seats surrounding an open kitchen, this petite dining room next to Duck de Chine lives large when it comes to flavor. The brief menu lists little more than beef brisket, tendon, and tripe, which are stewed to tender perfection and added to delicious noodles, hand-pulled while you wait.
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