Culinary Revolution
— The Changing Face of Beijing’s Hotel Dining Scene

From a food-lover’s perspective, China is currently one of the hottest tickets on the culinary circuit. For decades, the world’s oldest, and arguably most sophisticated cuisine, languished under a Communist system that promoted hardship and almost wiped out fine restaurant culture. But now, with financial support from a surging economy, the dining scene in Beijing is undergoing its most creative boom in half a century.

Check in at one of the capital’s upmarket hotels today, and the chances are you’ll be faced with a smorgasbord of cuisines that cater to a bewilderingly diverse range of tastes. However, it’s not only the variety of food on offer in hotel restaurants that has expanded so dramatically in recent years. The ever increasing influx of tourists, coupled with rising levels of domestic affluence, has turned the whole dining concept on its head.

Indeed, it’s an indication of how far the city’s hotel restaurant scene has come in a short time that there are now places where one can have it both ways: a beautifully designed setting and terrific food that refines traditions while respecting them. The menu at Made in China, flagship restaurant of the Grand Hyatt Beijing, exemplifies the fine tuning process taking place in many of Beijing’s hotel kitchens.

The piéce de rèsistance of Made in China’s bill of fare is the city’s most famed dish, Beijing duck, prepared in the exacting imperial court style that dates back to the 13th century. Now, as then, it is the epitomy of luxurious excess. The duck is roasted in the old-fashioned way using a brick oven and apricot wood chips. Every dish on the restaurant’s menu has been carefully researched, and is based on traditional recipes from across the nation. Not surprisingly, most regular patrons are wealthy Chinese, eager to prove the connoisseurial nature of their appetites (not to mention the size of their wallets).

The recent evolution of the whole Chinese restaurant experience in the capital’s hotels has, of course, been accompanied by a more overt blossoming in international cuisine. Twenty years ago an international traveler would have been lucky to find an English menu this side of the Hong Kong Straits. Only five-star hotels and a few restaurants in China provided good quality western food, usually at exorbitant prices. Now the only culinary dilemma facing most foreign four and five-star hotel guests in Beijing is which country’s cuisine to choose three times a day.

Like Chinese food, Western cooking is also evolving in the capital’s hotels. Long misunderstood by many Chinese chefs, in the past Western dishes in many restaurants could be woefully poor. Today, it is insufficient for Beijing’s top hotels to rely on the authentic reproduction of such trusty Western mainstays as steak au poivre and Caesar salad.

Chris Roberts, Food and Beverages Manager at the Hilton Beijing explains, “We need to move away from the eighties and nineties concept of “hotel food”. Hotel guests in Beijing are demanding higher quality and more creativity. It’s time for hotel cuisine to take the next step on the evolutionary path. The phrase “Take me to the Hilton” should be synonymous with fine dining, but dining in a passionate, creative and less formal environment.”

The Hilton Beijing is soon to reduce its number of in-house restaurants - by downsizing its cuisine the hotel aims to focus on providing a unique, high quality dining experience that will ensure both hotel guests and Beijing residents keep returning to eat. The Hilton’s signature restaurant, the award-winning Louisiana, is soon to undergo a transformation that will give diners a more interactive dining experience, while continuing to offer favorites such as lobster sauce piquante on buttered noodles and blackened king prawns.

Barry Suen, General Manager at Beijing’s Kunlun Hotel, also stresses the importance of innovation when it comes to keeping diners coming back for more. “Concept and ambience are key - dishes must be creative, and impeccable quality is essential”, he explains. In contrast to the Hilton, the Kunlun, which is locally owned, is renowned for its Chinese cuisine. The hotel’s well-known Shanghai restaurant, featuring Zhang Renliang as head chef, attracts the rich and famous from all corners of China. With a total of eight restaurants in the hotel, and more planned, the Kunlun’s divide and conquer strategy contrasts starkly with the Hilton’s current policy of reduction and refinement.

The proliferation and development of western cuisine in China’s urban hotel restaurants, while welcome, has brought with it a few problems. Not least of these is a shortage in qualified and experienced chefs, both domestic and international. Despite offering attractive salaries, hotels often have difficulty filling key positions in their kitchens. The problem is more acute in Beijing, which many feel lags far behind Shanghai in the Western cuisine market.

Despite the logistical and human resource headaches however, one thing is for sure – the evolution of Beijing’s hotel dining scene is both inexorable and all-encompassing. With 2008 promising even greater numbers of international guests, and urban incomes and standards on the increase, no aspiring hotel should be resting on its laurels in the dining arena.

-end-

Hotel Cuisine -