Restaurants Overview

China's economic boom has revolutionized dining culture in Beijing, with the city today boasting a wide variety of regional cuisines, including unusual, tasty specialties from Yunnan, earthy Hakka cooking from southern China, Tibetan yak and tsampa (barley flour), Sichuan's spicy and numbing flavors, and chewy noodles from Shaanxi. The capital also offers plenty of international cuisine, including French, German, Thai, Japanese, Brazilian, Malaysian, and Italian, among others.

You can spend as little as $2 per person for a decent meal to $100-and-up on a lavish banquet. The venues are part of the fun, ranging from swanky restaurants to holes-in-the-wall and refurbished courtyard houses. Beer is available everywhere in Beijing, and although wine was once only available in Western-style restaurants, many Chinese restaurants now have extensive wine menus.