MITCH MOXLEY
BEIJING — Special to The Globe and Mail Published on Saturday, Jan. 26, 2008 12:00AM EST Last updated on Friday, Mar. 13, 2009 11:16AM EDT
In Wudaoying Hutong, around the corner from the Lama Temple and past the old men playing cards, is the Vineyard Café, one of the coolest places in the Chinese capital.
Owner Will Yorke knows it. Last year, Yorke, his wife and a long-time friend opened Vineyard, a slick restaurant and bar, in a remodelled courtyard home in this hutong, a historic alleyway district that was once a Qing Dynasty military barracks. Yorke is proud of the restaurant to the point of cockiness, but for good reason: The Vineyard Café is packed most nights with hipster expats and affluent locals munching pizza and sipping wine or foreign beer from a carefully chosen selection.
"We called it Vineyard Café because we have a yard and we like to drink wine," says the fast-talking, T-shirt-and-jeans-wearing Brit, who has called Beijing home for 10 years. Yorke has lived in hutongs for much of the past decade, so opening a restaurant in one seemed natural. "I've always loved hutongs," he says over a couple of liberally poured glasses of house red. "There is a certain vibe that is more conducive to feeling comfortable."
In the frenzied lead-up to the 2008 Olympics, many of the city's hutongs have been demolished to make way for apartment buildings and office blocks. Others have undergone an unprecedented gentrification. Some courtyards are being gutted and remodelled into multimillion-dollar homes. Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and his wife, Wendi Deng, own one, and last May an anonymous buyer dolled out a record $14.4-million for a siheyuan, or four-sided
courtyard.
Others have been renovated into stylish bars and restaurants, like the Vineyard Café, many of which are hidden in dark alleyways and marked only by a lantern. They are a welcome respite from Beijing's other nightlife options, such as the rowdy bars of the Sanlitun area or the kitschy mega-clubs around Workers' Stadium. Critics may lament the loss of Old Beijing, but for many expats and visitors, a glass of wine in a quiet hutong, away from the city's noise and congestion, is one of the best ways to spend an evening.
Nanluoguxiang (South Gong and Drum Lane), a 700-year-old hutong north of the Forbidden City that was renovated last year, is a good place to start. The alleyway is home to a cluster of cafés and bars popular among the city's bohemian, MacBook-toting set.
It is perfect for a hutong bar crawl, which I attempted with two fellow expats one night. We started at Pass By Bar, one of the original hutong watering holes, opened in 1999, where we sat in the chilly courtyard sipping bottles of Tsingtao beer and talking Chinese politics. Inside, not a table was empty. The walls were covered with vintage Mao posters, Tibetan-themed art and shelves of foreign books. Bubble tea and beer appeared to be the drinks of choice among the mostly Chinese crowd.
Next, we made our way up Nanluoguxiang to Salud, a former café that reopened last March as a tapas and rum bar. At Salud, our bar crawl stalled because, quite simply, we were having too much fun to leave.
Salud had the feel of an impromptu party at a cottage in the French countryside (indeed, much of the bar's clientele is French, as are the owners). A Gypsy jazz band jammed in the corner while the cultured crowd sipped the flavoured rum for which Salud is known - ginger, apple cinnamon and spicy are the most popular, co-owner Nicolas Pellissier says.
Pellissier, a 32-year-old from Orléans, France, came to Beijing about 13 months ago to open Salud with a restaurateur friend. He says Salud benefits from the sense of community in the surrounding hutongs, something he hopes is reflected in the bar.
"Out on the street, you have expats, tourists, backpackers, Beijingers, and you have the people living here [in the hutong], because it's still a residential area, all walking around. It's just like a small village," he says over a glass of Yanjing beer and several Honghe cigarettes.
Pellissier lives in a siheyuan just around the corner from the bar, where he feels right at home among his Chinese neighbours, many of whom have lived in their courtyard homes for generations. "When I first came to Beijing, I used to live in a big apartment and I didn't know anyone," he says. "When I moved to the hutong, I knew all of my neighbours in a week. ... If the electrician is coming at 3 and I have to be at work at 2, I just get my neighbour to open the door."
One block east of Salud, behind the Central Academy of Drama in one of the city's narrowest hutongs, is the Candy Floss Café, with its charming courtyard and rooftop. Just north, overlooking the courtyard between the Drum and Bell towers - which kept time for the city for hundreds of years - is the aptly named Drum and Bell, a popular spot for afternoon rooftop cocktails in the summer or chilling by the coal-burning stoves come winter.
Two nights after we got held up at Salud, I'm out in the alleyways again, this time for dinner at Café Sambal, just north of the Drum and Bell towers. Twelve of us cram into a small room in the courtyard for the city's best Malaysian food, sharing yellow curry fish, beef rendang and kapitan chicken, the restaurant's specialty. With drinks, the bill comes to 130 yuan a person - about $18.
After Café Sambal, it's off to Bed, a dimly lit collection of courtyards with a minimalist decor and beds lining the walls. The atmosphere is part opium den, part bunker - dark, smoky and lots of concrete. You can't help but think you've stumbled upon a nightlife gem as you survey Beijing's in-crowd while sipping one fine mojito.
"This," says a member of our party, glancing around the bar, "is cool."
Hutong bars and restaurants are growing in both popularity and number, but in Beijing things tend to change fast. The local government protects some areas, such as Nanluoguxiang, but others, like the Vineyard Café's Wudaoying, remain vulnerable to city
bulldozers.
"It would be a disaster to lose this place, but what can you do?" Vineyard's Yorke says. "You have to expect that in Beijing."
*****
Pack your bags
Where to eat
Vineyard Café 31 Wudaoying Hutong, Dongcheng District; (011-86-10) 6402-7961;
Café Sambal 43 Doufuchi Hutong, Jiugulou Dajie, Xicheng District; 6400-4875
Da Li Courtyard 67 Xioajingchang Hutong, Golou Dongdajie, Dongcheng District; 8404-1430
Where to drink
Pass By Bar
108 Nanluoguxiang, Dongcheng District; 8403-8004
Salud 66 Nanluoguxiang,
Dongcheng District; 6402-5086
Candy Floss Café
35 Dongmianhua Hutong,
Dongcheng District; 6405-5775
Bed 17 Zhangwang Hutong,
Xicheng District; 8400-1554
Drum and Bell
41 Zhonglouwan Hutong,
Dongcheng District; 8403-3600
Where to sleep
Hotel Côté Cour
70 Yanyue Hutong, Dongcheng District; 6512-8020;
http://www.hotelcotecoursl.com
Beijing Guxiang 20 Club
20 Nanluoguxiang, Dongcheng District; 6400-5566,
Lu Song Yuan Hotel
22 Banchang Hutong, Dongcheng District; 6404-0436;
more information
For nightlife information, check out listings magazines the Beijinger (http://www.thebeijinger.com) and City Weekend (http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing).
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