New Beijing Bars & Restaurants: April 2017

By That's Beijing, April 1, 2017

There are so many new bars and restaurants opening up in Beijing every month that sometimes even we find it difficult to keep up. Need a refresher? Here's a roundup of all the new restaurant and bar openings we featured in our April 2017 issue.

Restaurants

GLO Kitchen X Raw Fitness

The gym-turned-healthy-living-space-turned-fitness-fanatic-community is back at it. GLO has opened a second location of its popular concept, a Crossfit studio and healthy café. On the menu: colorful salads, protein-packed energy bowls, infectious positivity.

See a listing for Glo Kitchen X Raw Fitness & read more Mifan/Mafan Reviews

Metal Hands

No hutong, no matter how obscure, is safe from the invasion of third-wave coffee shops. This month (and we swear there's a new one every month), it's Metal Hands on Jiaodaokou Toutiao. It falls into a familiar formula: Solid coffee, cute space, disappointing snacks. Rager Pie and BigSmall Coffee continue to hold the coffee gauntlet in this area; we continue to be very skeptical of anyone else trying to cash in on this trend.

See a listing for Metal Hands & read more Mifan/Mafan Reviews

Youyun

A Yunnanese restaurant hidden deep in a labyrinth of alleys south of Gui Jie. The menu hosts a plentiful a la carte selection, but this restaurant is all about the sets. From a RMB99 afternoon tea to a RMB3,988, 14-person extravaganza, you get the feeling that they want to curate an experience. Youyun’s various sets offer a fascinating variety of Yunnanese fare. Drawing influence from the kaleidoscopic flavors of Dai cuisine, the food here is consistently excellent, delicate and, at times, surprising. Among the standout dishes is the fried beef with Japanese banana flowers, and a tilapia served with citronella and a wickedly spicy dipping sauce. Elsewhere, the cured ham sings with deep flavor, and – we mean this – the chicken feet are some of the best we’ve ever tried.

See a listing for Youyun & read our full review here

V Shine

In the lower reaches of Sanlitun’s unpretentious Topwin Center sits the least pretentious oyster bar we know. It is a starting point for your journey of oyster exploration. The sample plates here feature different varieties of fresh oysters: La Lune, Gillardeau and Belon. Staffers are happy to explain their differences – or better yet, suggest a wine to go with them – and the menu even offers tasting notes. We love the intense, fragrant Belon, but the gentle La Lune is perfect for those looking to enter the oyster world slowly. There is more to V Shine than oysters. It is also a bistro and tapas joint. We enjoy plates of charcuterie, Icelandic scampi and Spanish-style shrimp.

See a listing for V Shine & read our full review here

Ningxia Taste

Ningxia Taste is in a mall. It’s the kind of cookie-cutter restaurant that has long rows of identical tables, where groups of coworkers form lines during workday lunch hours like cattle waiting for feed. But it is also a banger, a welcoming place with friendly service and unusually tasteful decor (well, for a mall). We’re recommended the Wuzhong boiled mutton (RMB118), which for a star dish is disappointingly dry and flavorless. The local flavor eggplant (RMB29), fares better – it’s both sugared and spicy. Our favorite is the squeaky, chewy fried oat noodles (RMB39). But if you want the full experience, get a camel meat skewer (RMB9, we’re not joking). Ningxia Taste, alas, is not the mind-blowing culinary discovery we hoped for. But it is a solid choice for lunch in Chaoyangmen.

See a listing for Ningxia Taste & read our full review here

The Flying Kangaroo

We will grant you no guesses as to the Flying Kangaroo’s dual theme. We will simply describe the decor as follows: lotta planes, lotta kangaroos. Decent place for fish and chips (RMB75) and the Australian burger (RMB60). It turns out that Australian burgers are the same as any other burger, just with beets. (Sorry, beetroot. They say beetroot in Australia.) Good place for after work drinks.

See a listing for The Flying Kangaroo & read our full review here

Bars

Red Dog

The decor at Red Dog is Thai Full Moon Party meets Parisian gentlemen’s lounge. It’s like if Jackson Pollock had a thing for tasteful nudes. It’s your middle school art teacher meets drugged-out bohemian hippie. Red Dog is as unexpected as the quality of its cocktails – solid, potent drinks developed by a bar manager with experience at Beijing’s shrine-to-mixology, Botany. We enjoy the sake-based Pacific Conference (RMB75) – light and fruity yet still packing a punch. The Cucumber Cooler (RMB75) is a slightly sweeter Tom Collins mix.

See a listing for Red Dog & read more Beijing Restaurant Reviews

Wilderness Brew

If Wilderness Brew were in the actual wilderness, we might find it endearing. You can interpret this to mean: We’d only go here if it were the only bar for miles. Instead, where it lives is arguably the opposite of the great outdoors – the gray concrete expanses of Eastern Xindong Lu, with its pitiful craft beer and 15 mounted faux deer heads proclaiming, ‘No really, we’re a tavern, trust us! Wait – where are you going?’

See a listing for Wilderness Brew & read more Mifan/Mafan Reviews