Take Your Tastebuds On a Culinary Journey Along the Silk Road at Qianmen Kitchen by BSK
If you’ve always wanted to travel the Silk Road but can’t remember where you parked your camel, Qianmen Kitchen by BSK offers a caravan of dishes so your taste buds can make the journey without leaving Beijing.
Located in Xi Xinglong Hutong, this new venture by Black Sesame Kitchen (BSK) joins a collection of jewelry stores, coffee bars, and swanky boutiques leading a revitalization in the city’s old commercial district. With a grand opening set for early November, the BSK team is taking the best of their successful cooking school and building on it.
“We want to showcase what our chefs can do,” says BSK’s founder Jen Lin-Liu, who is helping her former staff conceptualize the menu. Chef Aifeng Zhang heads the kitchen with his noodle expertise and Lin-Liu weaves recipes from her book “On the Noodle Road” into the mix.
Exposed beams, skylights, and blond wood furniture give the 30-seat restaurant a bright, modern feel while preserving the Chinese character befitting the neighborhood.
The menu starts in China with an assortment of small bites, dumplings, and main dishes, including Red-Braised Pork Belly Sliders (RMB 48) served in tender, steamed bao, and Chef Zhang’s Wok-Fried Brussel Sprouts (RMB 58) with Sichuan pickled vegetables and chili peppers, which turned me into a convert of these little green cabbages.
Heading west, the menu travels to Italy with Pesto Fettuccine (RMB 78) and Orecchiette with Chinese Kale and Anchovy Sauce (RMB 78). Grandma’s Chicken Soup (RMB 68), a tribute to Lin-Liu’s grandmother, is an East-West fusion of flavors ready to take on Beijing’s formidable winter.
Stops along the way include surprisingly delicate beef-stuffed Turkish Manti (RMB 88), a close cousin to Chinese dumplings, Trans-Siberian Borscht (RMB 48), and an assortment of dishes influenced by Middle Eastern flavors.
The cooking school’s signature Black Sesame Ice Cream with Candied Sweet Potatoes (RMB 88) now has a permanent home. But there’s room for two players on the dessert menu, and the Coconut Sago Pudding (RMB 38/68) could become equally habit-forming.
“BSK has been about introducing Chinese cooking to foreigners. At Qianmen Kitchen, we want to do the exact opposite,” explains Lin-Liu. “We’ve always thought of ourselves as a place to create understanding between cultures.”
The restaurant’s vision is to bring new ideas to a Chinese audience, in part through global cooking classes which will start soon. In addition to staff-led noodle and dumpling classes, home cooks are invited to come and teach. You bring the idea and the ingredients, and the restaurant will provide the space and help market the class. Shutters in the private dining room off the kitchen can be opened, turning the space into a global culinary classroom.
At a time when travel options are limited, Qianmen Kitchen by BSK temporarily transports diners between cultures using flour and water to show us that, from Chinese dumplings to Italian pasta, we’re more alike than different. Maybe there’s hope for the future.
Qianmen Kitchen by BSK 正阳门小酒馆
Currently in soft opening, Sunday-Thursday 11:30am-9pm; Friday-Saturday 11:30am-10pm
Xi Xinglong Jie 75, Dongcheng District
(on premises:185-0129-1756; reservations: 136-9147-4408)
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Images: Kirsten Harrington
