Best Restaurants In Beijing

At HaiDiLao, be sure to order the noodles. The show is soooo worth it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BQKfJstGYQ

Beijing food sucks. Beijing food doesn't deserve to represent the cuisine of China. In fact, there is no such thing called "Beijing cusine" It actually is knock-off of real Chinese food (Canton, Shandong, Huaiyang, Jingsu , Sichuan, Hunan and so on...) Dadong is not even really Chinese food, it is what so called Asian fusion ....
Also, there is no such thing called Singapore food, it is from Malaysia and other neighbours countries... (Singapore is like colony of Chinese, it used to be a part of Malaysia) If you want to taste real Chinese food, go visit Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou ...
Real southeast food Thailand and Malaysia

da dong is ok, a place to impress not to eat. Have to go with the original, Quanjude.

Btw, who cares about the meat? The whole point of Peking duck is the skin.

I love this guy. Because my favorite food is Beijing Duck! If you haven't tried, your life is incomplete! I would eat every time after I landed in Beijing.

I'll second DaDong for their duck! One of the highlights of our trip last year. Also try HuTong for "western" style chinese/mongolian style food. A bit on the expensive side - but pretty good!

I was just in Beijing in December and loved Lost Heaven. Great restaurant, the tea leaf salad appetizer is incredible.

@Ggg

U pretend you know everything, but actually you know nothing. Your point is not relevant to the article. You know shit.

Can't take the list of Western food seriously without a mention of Taco Bar. I'm pretty sure it's the only Western restaurant in town that would kill it even if it moved back to America.

Janes and Hootch is significantly better than Miles, although I guess that's arguable. Warren, the owner of J&H, is a cool guy so I suppose that shades my opinion a bit.

Can't go wrong with most of the Chinese recommendations on the list but note that most of the chuan'r places can be paired with homestyle Chinese food (jia chang chai) that includes many American favorites but done in a different, but delicious way, such as kung pao chicken, smashed cucumber with garlic, pepper beef on skillet, etc.

Also, bar/restaurant-wise, it's worth checking out some hidden gems in the hutongs like Amilal, Dali Courtyard, Mao Mao Chong, 4 Corners, etc. While the hutong scene is a little more dead than it was 2-3 years ago, it's still very cool to wander old traditional courtyards on the way to find a hidden cocktail bar or delicious serving of Yunnan food.

@Ggg I think technically Imperial Food is the only true Beijing food, and yeah, it's not that great. Nor is Northeastern style food (beifang cai) - fairly bland. But the great thing about Beijing is that you can get all the various regional foods of China and done well. You can get great Sichuan (Chuanban, run by the Sichuan provincial government), 3 Guizhou Men for Guizhou food, Dali Courtyard for great Yunnan food, several options for awesome Hunanese food, etc. It's the Chinese culinary melting pot, possibly only surpassed by Taipei in that regard.

Helpful, thanks! Always at a loss in bkk. Did make it to temple last year though. I end up staying on ringroad 3 where it intersects the main road (the e-w through Tienanmen) and it seems like there's nothing worthy around - will have to map the above and see if anything is close by!

Finally, and not to clog the comments, but Revolution has been pretty dead and mostly local the last few times I went there. I think their days of being an 'it' spot are over.

Xingfuercun area has a few good spots now including Big Smoke (good BBQ, but wouldn't impress Southerners), Parlor, a new and great speakeasy, and BBC, a cigar and high-end booze place.

You can find updates on the latest places here: http://beijingboyce.com - he's the unofficial scribe of the Beijing food/drink scene.

Thanks for the various tips

Last year in Beijing I visited the Johnny Walker House. Interesting place to walk through and have a drink. Relaxed atmosphere without a ton of people.

I haven't had a chance to stop in yet, but if anyone is interested in trying Chinese baijiu (a liquor) in a more relaxed setting, Capital Spirits ( http://www.capitalspiritsbj.com/) recently opened and is dedicated to the stuff. They even have flights available to try several different styles at once, and cocktails. I'm planning to make a trip to Beijing soon to visit them and Great Leap.

@Francis I have been living in Beijing for more than two decades and I know what I am talking about. I travel all around Asia, and I can tell you firmly that Beijing food has not only bad taste but also unhealthy. Seriously, try to eat Beijing food everyday and you will eventually get cancer. Beijing has an extremely high cancer rate compare to other part of China. I think your ignorance reveal how little you know about really Asian cusine. You should really shut up.

@Andrew M You are right. Beifang Cai is not really good in general, but the good thing I like about Beijing is its variety of food choices.

Ggg: Indeed you do knew very little, and yet you made big, bold claims.

Did you know Gordon Ramsey came down to Singapore, to learn local Singaporean food and competed with Singapore's local hawkers?
Google on the 3 Singaporean dishes he competed on. And they are just a small part of the local Singapore food.

And Peking Duck itself is a famous dish. Perhaps not everything served in Beijing is to your liking, but I am very sure Peking Duck is good, and definitely not sucky as you claimed.

And most ridiculously, you got the history wrong. Singapore's colonial history is with the British, not and never the Chinese.

Singapore did have a lot of Chinese immigrants during Colonial times, but to put it as a Chinese Colony, you have lost all credibility. You really do not know what you are talking about.

Do not make silly comments when you know little.

I visit Beijing very frequently(5-6times/yr), and am Chinese myself, although I live in Houston. A few places to eat come to mind.
For breakfast, a visit to Beijing is incomplete without "Jian bin guo zi." It is a street food, basically a Chinese crepe. It is cooked like a crepe, but is filled with Scallion, cilantro, hoisin sauce, fried dough, and egg. Relatively sanitary, and delicious
Here is a video I found, clearly the person making it is not experienced 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUzrSQvDpJo

I also second Quanjude for duck, and dislike Da Dong. Too healthy 😀

For western meals, you may want to try VIPS in the Lidu district. It is a western style fine dining restaurant owned by CJ, the food arm of Korean corporation Samsung in Beijing, because, well, globalization. The steaks are Australian, and the salad bar is REALLY good, with many meat and hot options. You must try the curry chicken salad and the mango salad at the salad bar.

Colonial history is probably irrelevant. As far as Chinese foods goes, Beijing is not among the famous 4 cuisines(i.e. Shandong, Sichuan, Guangdong and Huaiyang), although it does have some famous dish like Beijing Duck. If you have time, you'll definitely want to try those 4 cuisines, preferably in the respective provinces. They each offer complete, rich and complicated series of dishes to order from and they represent the best of Chinese cuisine.

"Beijing has an extremely high cancer rate compare to other part of China"

Which might have nothing to do with the food, but due to other factors (pollution, lifestyle choices, etc).

I liked DaDong, but honestly there's a place in Philly Chinatown whose Beijing Duck is just as good as DaDong's. When I went to DaDong, they weren't even promoting their duck, but there were signs everywhere promoting their most famous dish, which was sea cucumber. I wanted to try it since that's what they were supposedly most famous for, but the pictures of the sea cucumber looked disgusting and it was extremely expensive. So I couldn't bring myself to order it.

One of my favorite things in Beijing is getting breakfast from the street vendors. It's cheap and delicious.

Making a best restaurant in Beijing list is like making a most beautiful tree in Bali list in that neither will come close to being right or comprehensive, because there are so many great options. A more suitable title would be best restaurant for western tourists visiting Beijing for the first time.

Actually, given the people reading the site, maybe a more suitable title would be best restaurant for earning points at...

Shangri-la maybe the best to earning points when having Peking duck in hotel.
@Ggg, I can tell you there is NO evidence that "Beijing has an extremely high cancer rate compare to other part of China". Also, It's quite sure that the air pollution problem is the reason why there are so many cancer rate in China.
Then don't misguide others, most of my friends like Beijing food. Do you know that even the FIRST Michelin three-star Restaurant in China opened in Beijing? The readers here allways travel the world instead of only in Asia, they will judge.
BTY, as a Chinese, you really know nothing, it is Jiangsu, not Jingsu.

@Ggg - Re: your comments about Singapore and Singapore food. You, sir, are an idiot. There are many unique Singapore dishes (too many to mention) that are not found in or did not originate from Thailand or Malaysia. Moreover, it is *not* a colony of Chinese. Never was, never will be. They are distinctively Singaporeans - not Chinese, not Indians, not Malays.

Even though you claim to have traveled within Asia, you are clearly not Singaporean or have not spent any serious time in Singapore.

Please stick to comments about food in Beijing and leave it to other folks who are more knowledgeable to talk about Singapore food.