Court Cuisine originates from the imperial kitchen which cooked food for the emperor and his family. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, some chefs from the imperial kitchen opened restaurants in the capital to introduce the special food once only eaten by the imperial family.
Fangshan (Imperial-style) Restaurant sits on the island in Beihai Park in a traditional courtyard facing the lake. Apart from delicious dishes meticulously prepared with rare and expensive foodstuffs such as birds nests and sharks fins, the restaurant is also known for its pastries, including pea-flour cakes, kidney bean-flour rolls, miniature corn buns and sesame seed buns with chopped meat filling.
A newly-opened branch of restaurant of Fangshan style, Yushan Restaurant, is located a few hundred yards to the west of the north gate of the Temple of Heaven in the southern part of the city.
Tingliguan (Hall for Listening to the Orioles) Restaurant, in the Summer Palace, serves more than 300 dishes and pastries from the Qing and Ming imperial recipes. The 'All-fish Feast' is a speciality of the restaurant. The fish is caught from the Kunming Lake and cooked in a unique way. When the fish is served on the table, its mouth is still opening and closing and its gills flapping. Diners should not be frightened; it is falsely alive. The secret lies in keeping the nerve certre of the fish intact.
