There was a time when Chinese restaurants in hotels catered primarily to the life of the banquet.

Any businessperson visiting Shanghai to woo clients knows how the scenario plays out: a lavish meal, twenty-plus courses, many of them more ‘interesting’ than appetizing, and a huge check to finish off the evening. It was and is a necessary evil, one that oils the cogs of the business world in this metropolitan city.

While banquet dining still makes up a large part of the hotel restaurant custom, the scope of the restaurants has become far greater. With the luxury of well staffed teams, access to the finest of ingredients, hotel Chinese restaurants have space to play with the concept of Chinese food and cuisine, a luxury most free standing restaurants cannot afford. Hotels can bring in chefs from all over the country and use their collective expertise to offer guests a more expansive menu. In addition they have the facilities to change and develop their menu to suit their clientele.

At Gui Hua Lou, Shangri-la Pudong’s signature Chinese restaurant, they serve “a myriad of Chinese cuisines: Cantonese, Sichuan, Shanghainese and Huai Yang cuisine.” Its new executive chef Zhang Zai Ping, a native of Nanjing, fine tunes some of its recipes yet retains its time-honored culinary techniques. Instead

Beyond the banquet:Hotel Chinese restaurants come of age

by Apple Mandy

of using fatty pork for shiji tou (large pork meat balls), he opts for leaner meat to suit the customer’s taste.

Many hotel restaurants also have freedom to play with genres and develop new styles. At the Hilton, head chef Wen Xinguang combines Chinese ingredients with the use of Western techniques and vice-versa. Pan-fried foie gras is prepared with Sichuan spices and aromatic herbs to give a piquant kick. Meanwhile, shark’s fin salad, prepared with cucumber and carrot slices, has topped this summer’s seasonal menu, garnering much acclaim from connoisseurs. Over at the Four Season Si Ji Xuan restaurant specializes in ‘superior seafood’ set menus. Hong Kong-native chef Sam Yuen, who has cooked for former Chinese Premier Zhu Rong Ji, the Queen of the Netherlands and former US President Bill Clinton, says: “A good Chinese hotel restaurant can be distinguished by its signature dishes. In addition, the menu is ever-changing on top of still keeping the authentic flavors.”

Without too much apprehension, hotel Chinese restaurants could even be called a culinary genre of its own. One which offers an eclectic range of both the modern and the traditional and which, beyond a doubt, now offers more than obligatory feasts for the sake of commerce.

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Restaurant Feature

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