Beijing

Ask ten Beijingers where to eat Peking duck and Siji Minfu will come up more than any white-tablecloth institution. The draw is simple: ducks that emerge lacquered and glistening from the ovens, carved tableside into neat fans of crackling skin and rosy meat while you watch.

The ritual is exact. A first plate of pure crisp skin arrives to be dipped in sugar; then the meat, to be folded into thin house-made pancakes with matchsticks of cucumber, ribbons of scallion, and a swipe of fermented bean sauce. Order the duck-bone soup to close — nothing here goes to waste.

Come early or expect a queue that spills onto the pavement within sight of the Forbidden City. Lunch is calmer than dinner, and a walk through Qianmen’s hutongs afterward is part of the experience.

Tucked into the basement of the Opposite House hotel, Jing Yaa Tang is the rare see-and-be-seen restaurant that actually delivers on the plate. A canopy of red lanterns floats over a dramatic open kitchen, and the room hums with a mix of Sanlitun regulars and visiting design crowd.

The wood-fired duck is the headliner — leaner and smokier than the classic version, carved with ceremony. But the kitchen proves itself well beyond the theatrics: the dan dan noodles arrive with real numbing depth, and the mapo tofu is properly, gloriously fiery.

It is a splurge, but a considered one. Come for a long lunch, order the duck in advance, and let the cocktail list carry you into the evening.

Haidilao turned hot pot into theater, and its Wangfujing branch is the full production. While you wait, there are free manicures, board games, and snacks; once seated, a noodle puller may materialize to stretch a single strand of dough into an acrobatic ribbon at your table.

Beneath the showmanship is a genuinely good pot. Choose a split bowl so you can run a fiery Sichuan mala against a milder mushroom or tomato broth, then lower in hand-sliced lamb, fresh greens, and hand-cut noodles. The dipping-sauce bar is a project in itself — build a bowl of sesame, garlic, cilantro, and chili oil.

The queue is part of the ritual, but it moves, and the staff treat every table like a celebration. Go with a group and settle in for the long haul.

Baodu — tripe scalded for mere seconds in boiling water — is one of old Beijing’s most exacting street foods, and Baodu Zhang has been perfecting it for over a hundred years. Timing is everything: a beat too long and the texture turns to rubber, done right it is crisp and yielding at once.

The move is to dunk each piece for a few seconds, then swipe it through a nutty sesame-and-fermented-bean sauce brightened with chives and chili oil. It is unfussy, offal-forward eating served at a plain counter with little ceremony.

This is a stop for the curious and the hungry — pair it with a sesame flatbread and you have eaten the way Beijingers have for generations.

Most dim sum halls keep banker’s hours; Jin Ding Xuan never closes. This multi-storey Cantonese institution glows around the clock across from the incense haze of the Lama Temple, which makes it the city’s default answer for a 3 a.m. dumpling craving.

Trolleys and menus deliver the full canon: translucent har gow, molten custard buns, crisp-edged turnip cake, and barbecue pork puffs. Prices are gentle, portions are generous, and the sheer scale of the place means there is almost always a table.

Go late, go early, or go after a temple visit — the kitchen doesn’t care what time it is, and neither should you.

Chaogan is Beijing breakfast at its most unapologetic: pork intestine and liver stewed with a heavy hand of garlic and thickened into a glossy, gravy-like bowl. Yao Ji has been the neighborhood’s standard-bearer for decades, and the morning line out front proves the point.

Tradition says you eat it without chopsticks — hold the bowl, turn it, and sip from the rim, chasing each mouthful with a pillowy steamed bun. The garlic is assertive, the texture rich, and the whole thing costs less than a coffee back home.

It sits a short walk from the Drum and Bell Towers, making it an ideal fuel stop before a morning in the surrounding hutongs.

Yunnan, in China’s southwest, eats unlike anywhere else in the country — wild mushrooms, fresh herbs, funky cheeses, and a gentler, brighter kind of heat. In & Out brings all of it to Sanlitun in a green, unhurried room that feels a world away from the traffic outside.

Start with the fried goat cheese and the wild-herb chicken, then branch into whatever mushrooms are in season. The kitchen leans on fresh mint and lemongrass rather than face-numbing chili, so it is a welcome reset after a week of duck and hot pot.

Linger on the terrace with a pot of pu’er tea; this is a place built for a long, slow, plant-forward lunch.

Najia Xiaoguan reconstructs the cooking of the Qing court from old palace recipes, and eats like a step back into a bygone Beijing that most restaurants have forgotten. The setting matches the food: a warren of intimate, lantern-lit rooms dressed in dark wood and imperial reds.

The signature is the braised pork in an earthen pot — slow-cooked until spoon-tender in a dark, faintly sweet sauce. Around it circle refined Manchu dishes, sweet-and-sour and delicately spiced, meant to be shared across a leisurely, many-plate meal.

It is popular enough that a reservation is wise, especially at dinner. Dress the part and let the staff steer you toward the seasonal specialties.

At Xian Lao Man the dumpling menu runs to dozens of fillings, and reading it is half the fun: fennel-and-pork, lamb-and-squash, egg-and-chive, shrimp, and a long tail of seasonal oddities you will want to try just to say you did. Everything is pleated to order behind the counter.

Order them boiled to taste the dough at its silkiest, or fried for a crisp base. A mixed plate is the smart play — point at four or five fillings, pour a bowl of black vinegar with slivered ginger, and settle in.

It is cheap, busy, and gloriously unpretentious, the kind of neighborhood workhorse every city wishes it had more of.

Ghost Street — Gui Jie — is Beijing’s red-lantern-lined ribbon of round-the-clock restaurants, and Yang Fang is its late-night anchor. Skewers of cumin-dusted lamb hiss over charcoal until 4 a.m., the smoke and the crowds thickening as the night wears on.

The formula never changes and never needs to: pull up a plastic stool, order two dozen chuan’r, add grilled leeks, flatbread, and a plate of spicy crayfish in season, then wash it all down with ice-cold bottles of Yanjing beer.

It is loud, greasy, and joyful — the truest taste of how Beijing actually eats after dark. Come hungry and in company.