By Anthony Tao
Certain advantages come with being one of the world’s few landlocked capital cities, like safety from seafaring invaders. Access to good seafood is not one of them.
But there’s a solution for that. Liu Yipeng so missed the seafood from his hometown of Qinhuangdao, a port city in Hebei province, that he created a supply line to bring the best fish, oysters, clams and crabs to Beijing every morning. This was two years ago when he opened The Fresh as a cozy neighborhood restaurant. But it did so well that he parlayed it into a bigger space, recently opened, next to Winterless Hotel in the central business district.
“We’re not here to compete,” said Liu, a clean-cut boss who retains the youthful zest cultivated during his former job as a salesman for the fashion magazine Bazaar. “We want to introduce new options for Beijing’s seafood market.”
Liu’s partner is Alicia Shen, the company’s CFO, an art history and Spanish double major hired away from a corporate banking job at Bank of China. Both are young, around 30, with big plans buoyed by both romantic ideals and years of real-world experience. With three investors who are also their age, it’s no surprise that the food reflects their creative vigor and cosmopolitan sensibilities.
The oysters are meant for slurping, cooked with yellow rice wine to rinse out any raw ocean flavor. The crab practically blinks. And – for better or for worse, depending on how you feel about these guys – the mantis shrimps are plump and spikey. Of the fish on the menu, only two aren’t from the sea: the bighead carp, used for an enormous fish-cheek and tofu dish slathered in mildly spicy brown sauce, and the bass. Those who require a meatier fare can try the sautéed and braised hairtail.
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Photos by Noemi Cassanelli
Shen, who recently returned from a year’s stay in Peru, admits Peruvian influence on The Fresh’s creations – the head chef used to cook for the Peruvian and Uruguayan embassies in Beijing – but is hesitant about defining it as fusion. “We don’t like labels,” she said. “We only care about the quality.”
> Daily 10:30am-3am; 102, Building A, Winterless Hotel Building, 1 Xi Dawang Lu, Chaoyang 朝阳区西大望路1号温特莱中心A座102号 (8557 0502)
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