Private Kitchen 44: From Farm to Table, Guizhou Style

When you sign up to write about restaurants you know in advance that on top of many excellent dining experiences you will also encounter a steady stream of people asking you to recommend your “favorite restaurant” and “the best place to take visitors.” Over the years I have developed a set answer to this question but a recent mental stock take revealed that I haven’t actually been to a few of my top five recommendations in as many years.

Oversights such as this are, of course, the inspiration behind the Back for More column and of my recent visit to Private Kitchen 44, a Guizhou restaurant located just to the west of Houhai. One of the original batches of readily recommendable hutong restaurants, Private Kitchen 44 has been around in one guise or another for more than 10 years. The food has always focused on Guizhou classics such as fish in sour soup and has evolved over the years to reflect a farm-to-table ideology, as evidenced by the extensive list of suppliers from Beijing and further afield detailed at the front of the menu.

The aforementioned sour fish soup is as good as a version as I have tried in Beijing, filled with thick slices of grass carp in a tangy broth with a background note of fermentation akin to Korean kimchi stew. You can choose to order 250g (RMB 56) or 500g (RMB 108) of fish, so smaller groups needn’t worry about being over-faced by a huge bowl of expensive stew. Vegetarians will find plenty to enjoy on the menu, too; try the fresh wood ear mushrooms dressed with cilantro and chili oil (RMB 32) and the fish in the sour soup can be subbed out for wild mushrooms. Perhaps the only dish that fell flat was the eggs cooked on hot stones (RMB 48); not a bad dish as scrambled eggs go but one that felt more like a photo-friendly gimmick than a genuine innovation.

It is worth noting that these dishes and more are served by some of the friendliest, most helpful wait staff I have had the pleasure of encountering in Beijing. They will be more than happy to guide you through the tome-like menu while proffering sample shots of their homemade rice wine (which somehow manages to be both warming in winter and refreshing in summer). That, plus the quaint covered courtyard, make Private Kitchen 44 a great choice for both jaded Beijing diners and out of town guests.

Private Kitchen 44
Daily 11am-2pm, 5-9.30pm. 70 Deshengmen Neidajie, Xicheng District (6400 1280)
胡同四十四号厨房：西城区德胜门内大街70号

Photo: Robynne Tindall