Feeling at Home in Beijing

Whether you are businessperson representing a multinational company or a jet-setting tourist, a visitor to Beijing can enjoy access to high-class hotels, stays at residences of former celebrities, enjoy authentic Chinese food in an elegant ambience, or experience liveliness of Chinese daily life in a traditional courtyard (siheyuan).

Residing in Gardens

As a capital city, off and on, for more than 850 years, Beijing has dozens of former residences of famous people in its downtown area. Although the current size of these residences is smaller than the original ones, they are well-kept in terms of basic structure and style. After renovation, some of them have been turned into high-class hotels featuring the atmosphere of the Chinese nobility.

The Bamboo Garden Hotel, located in a tranquil hutong near the Drum Tower, is one example of these kinds of garden-like hotels. The hotel was formerly the residence of Sheng Xuanhuai, the minister of Posts of the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). From 1950-55, Dong Biwu, the vice-chairman of the People's Republic of China lived there. In 1982, it became a hotel with 40 rooms. Verdant bamboo forests, blossoming Chinese flowering crab apples and curving long-corridors combine to create an elegant ambience at the hotel.

Four sets of luxury rooms, named Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, are famous among foreign tourists and are priced at 1,780 yuan (US$223) each. Four renowned Chinese calligraphers autographed steles found in these rooms.

Different from other high-class hotels, these garden-like hotels provide a sense of nobility and elegance.

Dining in Courtyards

Since Beijing offers a truly dazzling array of dining options for even the most demanding of gourmets, it is difficult for newcomers to make a mark on this world-famous culinary scene, but the Tian and Di Restaurant and the Guigongfu restaurant rise to the occasion for locals and tourists of all kinds.

Tian and Di Restaurant

Nestled in the newly renovated Changpuhe Park in the shadow of the Forbidden City, in the historic Nanchizi area, the Tian and Di Restaurant is clearly going all out to impress the most exacting of customers with its fabulous location and imaginative interior design. 

The restaurant is located close to the East Gate of the Forbidden City and to the revamped Nanchizi, now home to some of the most upmarket siheyuan in town. In short, this is a place to impress clients or business contacts or to enjoy a lavish no-expense-spared meal in beautiful surroundings. The decor is a real feast for the eyes. The natural lighting is perfect, creating a relaxing ambience missing from so many artificially lit restaurants. Elaborate carvings and traditional Chinese-style wall hangings and paintings create the atmosphere of an art gallery. Private rooms create an air of exclusivity and are also tastefully fitted with eye-catching carvings in the wooden decor and roof details resembling the courtyards outside.

The menu goes all out to impress too with a tremendous variety from the dim sum popular in South China to more exotic dishes such as bird's nest soup (up to 580 yuan or US$73) or abalone (up to 3,880 yuan, US$485).

Given that you're so close to the Forbidden City, it's perhaps appropriate that as a diner you're made to feel like an emperor! Golden doilies echo the imperial yellow seen in the Forbidden City and everything right down to the elegant chopsticks have clearly been chosen with great care. Even the restrooms here are a works of art -but it would be remiss to spoil that pleasant surprise in advance!

Guigongfu

Grand testaments to Beijing's central place in Chinese history can be found all over town, in palaces, temples and imperial parks. But, it can be challenging to find places of a smaller, more personal scale that give a sense of the people and places that made the capital what it is today. To get exactly that kind of a feel is one good reason to head to Guigongfu, a beautiful restaurant in Dongcheng District steeped in two of China's treasures, its remarkably rich history and its tea culture. A worthy second reason is its fantastic food. Occupying an impressively large and sprawling courtyard house or siheyuan, and distinguished as the former residences of two empresses from the late Qing Dynasty, the compound, as it stands today, is surprisingly only one-tenth of its original size. It was first home to the Empress Dowager Cixi before she was married. After she ascended to the throne, she turned it over to her brother Gui Xiang, whose surname inspired the restaurant's name. Later, Gui Xiang's second daughter was married to Cixi's nephew, Guangxu, the second-to-last emperor of China. The theme of many of the restaurant's creative dishes is tea; tea is a key ingredient or dishes are otherwise imbued with a tea fragrance. The kitchen also deserves credit for its artful presentations. Perhaps the best example of Guigongfu's artful touch is a dish called "Lu Yu Brews Tea," named for an ancient poet known as a great connoisseur of the beverage. The dish is served on a long platter, with a small porcelain sculpture of Lu Yu at one end anxiously looking across at a teapot suspended over an edible "fire." The fire portion is made of strips of tender, roasted beef in a smoky, dark sauce meant to represent logs, laced with whole-dried red chillies portraying flames and fried leaves of black oolong tea in the place of coals.

Entertaining

Enjoying fragrant tea at teahouses, listening to high-level performances of Peking Opera and roaming fashionable shopping malls are the real life experiences of tourists in Beijing. Sitting in theatres and enjoying a splendid Peking Opera may allow audiences to enjoy a sense of what it may be been like to be an emperor.

To get tourists closer to the picture, we depict one teahouse situated at the popular Shichahai area, where row upon row of restaurants and bars locate.

ChajiafuTeahouse

The glamour of Chinese architecture and culture lies in various places. A teahouse, standing quietly on the banks of Houhai in Central Beijing epitomizes the magic of Chinese architecture and culture.

Originally an octagonal pavilion in Shichahai Park, it is now a teahouse. Its decoration leaves an impression of delicacy, whether from the high-quality Ming- and Qing-style furniture or its displays of exquisite teapots, its folding screens standing from ground to ceiling or its precious jade hangings. The intricate tea-ceremony show is a feast for the eyes. Four private rooms and a large room in the middle of the teahouse provide options for private chats and parties.

The British, Russian, Japanese and German embassies to China, as well as European Union Office in Beijing often hold activities at the teahouse. On January 25, 2005, British Minister of Foreign Affairs Jack Straw was invited here to have a private chat.

Experiencing Real Life

To get off the luxury path and enjoy Old Beijing, tourists can taste jiaozi with an ordinary family and learn a little about the basic structures of courtyards. Families in the Jiaodaolou area near the Drum and Bell Tower offer this kind of service. The housewives can speak a little English when introducing themselves and their families. And they can tell stories about their houses and the courtyard culture.

Garden-like Hotels

1    Lu Song Yuan Hotel

      22 Banchang Hutong,

      Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6404 0436

2    Hao Yan Hotel

      53 Shijia Hutong,

      Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6512 5557

3    Beijing Hejingfu Hotel   

      7 Zhangzizhong Lu,

      Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6401 7744

4    Huadu Hotel

      A 28, Wangzhima Hutong, Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6404 5351

Courtyard Restaurants

1    Royal Palace

      Inside Changpuhe Park,

      east of the Forbidden City,

      Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 8511 5372

2    Tianqu Garden

      Inside Changpuhe Park, Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 8511 5142

3    Tian and Di Restaurant

      140 Nanchizi Dajie,

      Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 8511 5372

4    La Cité French Restaurant

      115 Nanchizi Dajie,

      Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 8511 5142

5    Lu Ying Fang Ting Club

      Inside Changpuhe Park, Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 8511 5372

6    Gegefu Restaurant

      9 Daqudeng Hutong,

      Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6407 8001

7    Cuihualou Restaurant

      6 Lianzi Hutong,

      Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 8404 3851

8    Guigongfu

      11 Fanjiayuan Hutong, east of Chaoyangmen Nanxiaojie, Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6512 7667

9    Baguobuyi

      89-3 Di'anmen Dongdajie, Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6400 8888

10  Han Zhen Yuan

      20 Qinlao Hutong,

      Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 8402 2324

11  Hua Jia Yi Yuan

      99 Dongzhimennei Dajie, Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6405 1908

12  Yuefu Restaurant

      218 Dongzhimennei Dajie, Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 8403 9067

13  Qian Hou Yuan

      2 Nanwanzi Hutong,

      Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6514 0901

14  Zi Jing Shi Kuo

      118 Yanyue Hutong,

      Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6512 3258

15  Noble Club

      B 16, Hepingli Zhongjie, Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6428 1188

16  Red Capital Club

      66 Dongsi Jiutiao,

      Dongcheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6402 7150/1/2

17  Lijia Cuisine

      11 Yangfang Hutong,

      Deshengmen Dajie,

      Xicheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6618 0107

18  Tanyuan Imperial Cuisine

      10 Huguosi,

      Xicheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6617 7098

19  Meijia Cuisine

      24 Daxiangfeng Hutong,

      Xicheng District

      Tel: + 86 10 6612 6845

20  ChajiafuTeahouse

      Inside Houhai Park, Deshengmennei Dajie,

      Xicheng District

      Tel: +86 10 6616 0725