High-end restaurants seek new recipe for frugal times
Print Edition
shark’s fin, bird’s nest and abalone are gone from the menu at Beijing’s Xiang E Qing restaurant — a favorite of government officials just months ago. Diners are now left with less exotic fare such as shredded beef, pickled turnip and fried peanuts.
China’s high-end restaurants have gone into crisis under leader Xi Jinping’s campaign to crack down on party extravagances such as dining on the public dime.
To stem big losses and avoid the now-tarnished image of VIP banquet halls, these restaurants have been busy reinventing themselves.
“We don’t do high-end! We just serve family-style food,” a manager at Xiang E Qing told a visitor who wanted to see the dramatic transformation of one of the capital’s most prestigious eateries.
The Xiang E Qing restaurant in downtown Beijing — part of a national chain that has been among the hardest hit — no longer has the expensive liquors, minimum spending requirements or special fees for the private banquet rooms where officials and business executives once gathered in seclusion. Its calling cards have been rewritten to promote a joyful, family atmosphere.
Restaurants serving exquisite delicacies in banquet rooms long flourished under the lavish spending habits among public officials. But new Party rules from the beginning of this year have curbed spending on food and drink, and Xi himself has set the example by having a work meal of four simple dishes and one soup.
Some of that wining and dining has gone underground, with officials sprucing up private clubs and government canteens with pricey booze and fancy meals or ducking into secluded locales.
Even so, China’s dining market has hit its lowest point in more than two decades and the high-end market had suffered the most, the Commerce Ministry said last week.
To cope with the new reality, high-end restaurants are diversifying to include fast food and take-out, as well as modestly priced homestyle dishes.
“We are all remaking ourselves,” said Han Fang, a manager at another high-end restaurant in Beijing. “We need to adjust to whatever the policies the country has.”
National chain Xiao Nan Guo Restaurant Holdings Ltd Group reported a 43.3 percent decline in profits for the first six months of 2013.
Xiang E Qing reported a loss of US$35 million for the first six months of the year — a steep plunge from a net profit of US$12 million for the same period in 2012.
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