Beijing's brave new cuisine

The city's regional and international eateries make for an eclectic mix

Almost a decade ago, when dining out in Beijing meant eating at a simple streetside stall, chef Viviane Goncalves had a dream. The Sao Paulo native knew she wanted to travel around the world and eventually open a restaurant in Beijing. Today, after nine years of studying and planning, she presides over the kitchen of Alameda, a casual, airy eatery in Beijing's popular Sanlitun neighbourhood, where she creates modern Brazilian fare for a packed house every night.

'Beijing has a lot of fine dining but not too many mid-range options,' she says. 'Alameda is what was missing.'

The capital is attracting young chefs from around the world eager to create the foods of their native countries. Together, they have produced a diverse range of cuisines from Brazil, Serbia, California and Japan with local flavours and ingredients. Add to the menu the vast variety of China's regional cuisines and you have an eclectic mix of tastes that veritably embodies the term renao: hot, chaotic and exciting.

Beijing Bites

The northern diet relies heavily on wheat, and thick-skinned dumplings and hand-pulled noodles star among local cuisine. Dumpling restaurants offer boiled or fried jiao zi stuffed with fillings from the ubiquitous pork and chive to ground mutton, while raucous zhajiang mian joints dish up enormous bowls of doughy noodles topped with a salty brown sauce and an assortment of vegetables.