All geared up for an authentic Peking duck experience in Beijing? Before you tuck in, get the full story of the dish Beijing gave to the world right here!
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Chinese have been roasting ducks for donkey’s years. (Donkey meat is big in Beijing too, but that’s another post.) The first recorded mention of roast duck dates back to the Northern and Southern Dynasties around 500 AD, although the Peking duck we love to eat today emerged, it’s reckoned, during the early Ming Dynasty.
Like many grand delicacies Peking duck probably started life on the Imperial banquet table. Eventually, the recipe would have been smuggled out of the palace by cooks or servants, to find its way into well-heeled residences and restaurants.
And this brings us to Bianyifang. The city’s oldest surviving restaurant chain, Bianyifang Kaoyadian started life as a takeaway stall on Mishi Hutong (Rice Market Alley) south of today’s Tiananmen Square way back in 1416. That’s four years before Beijing was declared the official capital of China (1420 was also the year the Forbidden City was completed). Up to then, the center of power was Nanjing, a thousand kilometres south along the Grand Canal.
If you’ve ever dined in Nanjing, you’ll know that Jiangsu folk are even more quackers about duck than Beijingers. The wetlands of the mighty River Yangtze teem with waterfowl, and these plucky duckies probably started hitching rides on grain barges bound north to the new capital. This is the supposed origin of the white-downed Pekin duck breed, who today are bred and raised on farms in Beijing’s northern suburbs. Fast-growing and instinctively gluttonous, they reach slaughter weight after just 40 days.
But the history of Peking duck doesn’t end there. At Bianyifang diners stuffed the juicy duck inside small sesame wheat buns called shaobing; the pancake method would come much later. Also, Bianyifang developed what is known as the ‘closed-oven’ technique for roasting duck whereas today almost all restaurants roast in a wood-fired, open-fronted “hung” oven. (In our experience, the closed oven method makes for juicier meat but lacks the famously crisp skin). Step up, Quanjude.
Ask a Beijinger for a duck shout-out and (for lack of a better idea) chances are they’ll send you to one of several branches of Quanjude. Founded back in 1864 by a poultry dealer named Yang Quanren, the restaurant pioneered the idea of cooking ducks by hanging them in open ovens over the wood of fruit trees to impart a perfume into the skin, and eating the flesh wrapped together with scallions and soybean sauce in thin wheat pancakes (called heye bing).
The giant branch at Hepingmen, opened in 1979, is the undisputed flagship – seven floors, 41 dining rooms and endless acres of Quanjude’s trademark communist-chic red and gold décor. Ground zero for Peking duck, you might say. Over the years, everyone from Fidel Castro to Richard Nixon has been hosted here in what Zhou Enlai called “roast duck diplomacy”.
Despite their fascinating histories, however, these days we don’t rate either of these old Beijing restaurants highly. So which should you go to? Stay tuned for more on Beijing’s Best Duck Restaurants!
Hungry yet? If you’re going to eat duck while you’re here, you may as well do it in style. Bespoke offers an exclusive dinner at the city’s best duck restaurant with a resident expert and chef, who will even pair the duck with a range of other signature Beijing dishes and explain everything as you go. Find out more here!
About the author: Tom O’Malley is Propaganda Secretary at Bespoke Beijing. A lifestyle journalist, guidebook author, glutton and bon vivant, Tom is a tireless crusader for fine food, hospitality and tourist experiences in China’s capital.