Beijing area guide: Liangmaqiao

Hit up the embassy district for great Japanese food as well as some hidden cheap eats

There's more to Beijing's diplomatic district than embassies, official residence compounds and five-star hotels. Being the fancy facades you'll find bustling markets, quality delicatessens and some of Beijing's best Japanese food.

Restaurants

Baoyuan Jiaozi Wu (宝源饺子屋)

Located behind the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel and Hard Rock Café on Maizidian Jie, Baoyuan Jiazi Wu is an unassuming venue that seats both foreigners and locals alike. The point of this place is the jiaozi, hence the restaurant name. Diners can customise their jiaozi by choosing wrappers in all-natural hues and tie-dye-style blends of orange, purple, green or white made from carrots, tomatoes, purple cabbage and spinach. 

Palms LA

The original Palms caused a stir when it opened in Gulou back in 2015, bringing an LA-style blend of Korean and Mexican to an under-taco’d Beijing. At this second location, the menu's fuller, more varied and even more tempting. And that’s just the cocktails.

Vin Vie

After previously serving Japanese home-style food at a prior location on Xinyuan Nan Lu under a different name, Vin Vie later moved and reinvented itself as a modernised izakaya, offering bar food on mostly small plates.

Its address lists it as being on Maizidian Jie but it's actually located on Nongzhanguan Bei Lu, behind a hole-in-the-wall Sichuan eatery and through a grungy gate across from an adult sex shop. Make the effort to find it and you’ll have the reward of excellent and simple food in a convivial setting.

Bottega Jinshang

Strictly Neapolitan-style pizzas are the focus of Italian eatery Bottega's menu, and, indeed, the human experience. The signature Bottega pizza is a statement pie, and features a hefty burrata at the centrepoint that oozes when pierced over accompanying anchovies and sweet cherry tomatoes. However though undoubtedly pizza-centric, Bottega’s menu sees triumphs consistently throughout, and its concise offering of pastas is especially worth stretching stomachs for.

Cai Yi Xuan

The flagship Chinese restaurant at the Four Seasons Beijing is one of Beijing's best dim sum restaurants, serving up high-class Cantonese cuisine. Check out the xioalongbao with an almost obscene amount of hairy crab roe. The simmered prawns with black garlic and coriander are miraculously savoury and rich like foie gras, yet as light as if they had been simply poached. It’s not cheap, but if this is what quality costs we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Bars

Arrow Factory Taproom

Arrow Factory's first fully blown taproom and restaurant is a three-storey space that's been converted to house the brewing apparatus on the first floor. Even before you consider the reliably tasty brews, central location and gorgeous rooftop terrace, it’s worth stopping by for the food alone. Arrow Factory Taproom is a fine example of working on a formula until you get it just right.

Vin Vino

From the same folks behind Vin Vie, Vin Vino serves double-duty: by day it’s a quiet neighbourhood café slinging cheesecake (28RMB), sandwiches (58RMB) and third-wave coffee (38RMB); but by night the ice buckets come out and samovars get stowed as the space transitions into a tapas and wine bar. The wine list at Vin Vino is eclectic with a slight preference for things French, while the tapas menu is equally flexible, picking and choosing from Japanese, French, Italian and Spanish elements.

Shops

Kubrick Bookstore

Kubrick is a cool, contemporary space, which stocks both classic and off-piste Chinese-language books, as well as a limited English-language selection. Beyond the books, there are specialist magazines from around the world, cute ranges of stationary and table dedicated solely to succulents. Design-focused in style and substance, with a pleasant café serving excellent coffee alongside, Kubrick is the aesthete's bookshop in Beijing.

Principle M

Principle M. is a dynamic, young fashion and retail company dedicated to bringing modern, high-quality essential menswear to the professional community in China, Beijing in particular. Core services include bespoke and made-to-measure suiting, premium ready-to-wear, and personal image consulting.

Spin Ceramics

With a head team of domestic and international designers, Shanghai-based Spin has been in the porcelain business since 2002. There’s a huge selection of ceramic art on offer, all of it handmade, singular and delightful. From the lumpy pots collectively known as the Seven Fortunes to the carved Japanese saké bottles and super-square jewellery boxes, the more you look, the more you'll have occasion to smile.

Sanyuanli Market

Sometimes known as Xingyuanli, this market is local living 101 for expats. Prices here are slightly higher but an overall better quality makes worthwhile one-stop shopping for frozen puff pastry, cheese, mushrooms and truffles, whole chickens, meyer lemons, nuts, avocados and more. 

Laitai Flower Market

Flowers on flowers on flowers abound at this, China's largest botanical warehouse – if you can name a plant, you can probably buy it here, although don't expect to be able to bargain the already reasonable prices down. There's a selection of fish and tanks on the first floor, and a few floors of questionable paintings and driftwood abominations on the upper floors that we wouldn't bother with. Liangma Flower Market is nearby and a bit smaller, but is also a charming and sweetly-smelling way to wile away an afternoon. Yes, it's as twee as the preceding sentence to spend your time skipping down aisles of roses and cute little bonsai, but we challenge you to find a more pleasant shopping destination.

For full venue details and even more awesome things to do in Liangmaqiao, hit '阅读原文'.

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