A Touch of Alsace: Tonton & Tata Alsace Opens in Sanlitun Soho

The first thing the manager, Marine, said to my dining companion didn’t inspire confidence. “You’re French? I hope you’re not Alsatian.” That might have seemed discriminatory if Tonton & Tata was not in fact Beijing’s first Alsace-style restaurant.

The interior didn’t help either. The owners have so far done little to address the incongruity of sticking a provincial French brasserie in a Chinese mall, so the restaurant has all the rustic charm of a branch of Zara: stark lighting, white walls and not much else.

Our flammekuche (RMB 68), a rib-sticking Alsatian “pizza,” was the first dish to show up. Surprise! It was generous and rich, loaded with onions, cheese, bacon and double cream, with a thin, brittle base. Next, a lackluster “country salad” (RMB 48) came with too little bacon and an unimpressive dressing, but things picked up again with the choucroute. At RMB 128, it seemed expensive, but Alsace’s most famous dish is served here with three types of sausage, squares of tender pork, fatty salami slices and mash. The all-important sauerkraut (from whence the name choucroute derives) lacked vinegary zing, but was rich with animal fat.

Obviously someone at Tonton & Tata knows a bit about Alsace. It turns out that Marine’s husband is Chef Yannick Ehrsam from Sofitel, who got the kitchen up and running. She herself also works for a major French wine company. Be reassured, there’s enough culinary know-how here to make Tonton worth a try. Just wait until they’ve decorated the place.

Also try: La Taverne, Brasserie Flo

Tonton & Tata Alsace, Daily 11am-11pm. B1-239, Bldg 2, Sanlitun Soho, 8 Gongti Beilu, Chaoyang District (136 8120 6738) 朝阳区工体北路8号三里屯Soho 2号楼B1-239