To experience the pleasure of Chinese food completely, it is not enough to choose something comfortingly familiar, such as sweet-and-sour pork, hoping that will taste the same as in the neighborhood restaurant back home.  It may well do so, but this misses the point of a Chinese meal, with its yin-yang balance of flavors, textures and ingredients. The foods from Beijing are satisfying indeed, with sharpened, direct flavors that Westerners undoubtedly will find pleasing.

As the capital of China, Beijing has become the focus for all manner of gourmet foods that you would expect to find in the Chinese provinces. Traditional Beijing cuisine such as roast duck, imperial cuisine and hot pot are still the main items on the menu for most locals. However, as more and more people arrived from the provinces to settle in the capital, other genres of cuisine such as Canton, Sichuan have become a part of what is on offer from Beijing's many caterers. So, now it is possible to find the widest possible range of excellent food ranging from simple dishes to quite exotic ones. In addition, there are many excellent restaurants that serve foreign cuisine. American, French, Italian, Indian, Korean, Vegetarian restaurants are all easily found. All in all, Beijing is a gourmet's paradise and there are establishments to suit all tastes and all pockets.

Recommended Restaurants

The Qianmen Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant
Established in 1864, the restaurant is nationally famous for its roast duck, China's No.1 delicacy. The restaurant has kept the traditional method of roasting duck since its establishment: to hang the duck on a pole over a wood fire until the skin turns golden brown and crispy. Optional flatbread, sweet paste, green-onion and sometimes cucumber are provided to wrap the duck slice. Other tempting dishes featuring other parts of duck are offered in the restaurant, duck tongue soup, abalone and duck breast with chili sauce, eel with duck breast in casserole. Service is wonderful here.

Price: US$11-20    
Comparison: more expensive than average
Phone: Tel: +86-010-63023062
Directions: The restaurant is at No.32 Qianmen Street, a five-minute walk south of Tian'anmen Square.

Fangshan Tang (Imperial Food House)
Fang Shan Fan Zhuang' (Fan Shan Restaurant) it was opened in 1925 by chefs who used to work in 'royal kitchen' (Yu Shan Fang), many snacks are still strictly made by hand in the traditional way. it also offers the most famous chinese meal-set 'Man Han Quan Xi', if you have SUPER GOOD appetite, try it! The food there might be a bit expensive comparing with other restuarants the city (around $20 per person), but you definitely can't find another restaurant with the atmosphere! With special location & waiters/waitresses all dressed as Qing dynasty courtesans.

Price: $20/person
Address: Beihai Park
Other Contact: 6401 1889 or 6401 1879

Li Family Restaurant
Away from the broad boulevards of Beijing on the outskirts of the city hides one of the most exclusive restaurants in the world.  It has one table. The Li Family Restaurant is run by mathematics professor Li Shan-lin whose grandfather was Minister of Household Affairs for the Imperial Court (his job was to oversee the official tasters for the dowager empress CiXi) and left him a legacy of recipes. His daughter, armed with these imperial recipes, won first place out of 3,000 contestants in a national cooking contest held in 1984. After that, Li Shan-lin decided to open a restaurant in his small home located down a narrow street in a hutong (a walled alley way community).  Li Shan-lin cooks Mandarin fish in a recipe favored at the turn of the century by the dowager empress Cixi; he stir-fries it over the wood fire with ginger, garlic, scallions and garden herbs.  He also stir-fries a sweet-and-sour fish with green peppers, bamboo shoots, ginger, vinegar and sugar.  Li Shan-lin's batterie de cuisine is limited to a small assortment of well-used woks, steamers, and standard pots with which he creates various wheat-flour dumplings filled with vegetables, pork, or shrimp, adding a bit of egg, minced ginger, and bamboo shoots.  He also makes special dumplings and salads.

Price: $50/person
Address: Backside of Back Sea

Afunti – Xinjiang and Arabian Food
All the long tables are tightly packed together because once everyone has eaten, you're allowed to get up on them and dance! The highlight of the evening comes when a pretty slim Uighur woman appears on stage in an exotic costume with a snake wrapped round her neck to perform a stunning Arabian Night dance! The crowd cheers her on and not long after the host invites people on stage to dance with her. There are various competitions in which you can act the fool, have fun and maybe win a hat to take home with you.

There are so many dishes to choose from, Middle Eastern pasta with vegetables in tomato sauce, roast lamb on skewers seasoned perfectly, fruit platters, fish, pitta bread etc, and all are good! There are also different types of beers, soft drinks, spirits and cocktails.

Price: US$15-20  
Comparison: more expensive than average
Address: 2A Houguaibang Hutong
Phone: (0086)(10)65272288 / 65251071
Directions: No.2 Hou Guai Bang Hutong, Chaonei Street, Dong Cheng District. Its down a small street, and many taxi drivers get lost! Its best to give your phone to the taxi driver and let the restaurant people tell him where it is!

Beijing’s 8 Food Street

1. Fucheng Road
High scale restaurants of special food from Hangzhou, Hunan, Sichuan, Yue, Hakka and others with different taste and style of each. Stylishly decorated with modern design, or traditional Chinese features, this street is famous for its delicate food with comparatively higher price of approximately 100RMB/person.

2. Huizhong Road -Datun Road
Located in the Asian Game Village , this area offers you as many choices as you can choose from. Restaurants of different Chinese cuisine, of different scale, of different size are full of eaters. Sometimes you even need to queue up for a table. Competition is severe here, so you will see new restaurant every time you visit.

3. Xiaoyun Road
Located between Sanyuan bridge on the 3rd ring road and Xiaoyun Bridge on the 4th ring road. Xiaoyun Road is busy with skyscraper office buildings and Luxuary apartments on both sides; in addition to that, many stylish restaurants of Chinese, French, Thai food etc. are residing here. Usually featured with unique interior, simple and lofty, very popular among young and fashionable people.

4. Laitai Street
Make a first left hand turn from East Liangmaqiao Road across the Women’s street, Laitai Food Street is rather young compared to the rest. However due to its youngness, the layout of this area is more structured. There are neat parking lots in front of and at the back of each restaurant. Row of restaurants stands one by one and of course all have good business. French, Italian, Korean, Xinjiang, Japanese, Hunan, Guangdong, Hangzhou, Sichuan food, even Lebanonese food can be found here and Tea Houses as well.

5. Suzhou Street
Located in the Silicon Valley, Zhongguancun, many restaurants are built in the old royal family’s house. Small built-in-house garden with Chinese style and fountains adds your appreciation to the delicious food. Price here is relatively high.

6. Ping An Avenue
Right behind the Jingshan Park, close to Houhai, Ping An Avenue used to be the residing center of Qing Imperial Family’s relatives and high ranking officers. Today some of these old houses are renovated to be restaurants. Gege Fu, Princess’s Palace, is one of them. Food are featureed with Imperial’s Food. Real Beijing local food restaurant like Beiping Lou is one of them.

7. Qianmen Avenue
Old name restaurants with 100 years of history like Quanjude (Roast Duck), Laozhengxing Fanzhuang, Yitiaolong Fanzhuang, Douyichu Shaomai are all on this street.

8. Guang’anmen
Famous for its Sichuan food, hot pot.