A MAN OF TASTE
Young chef’s new restaurant in Beijing offers patrons food without a formal menu. Li Yingxue reports.
When Zhang Zhicheng watched Japanese cartoon Cooking
Master Boy for the first time, he knew that he was going to be a chef one day.
“You could feel the pride of being a chef,” Zhang says.
“Like in the cartoon the young master chef is shining under golden lights.”
Despite having seen it dozens of times, and been working the kitchen for more than 10 years, the 25-yearold chef still watches the cartoon in his spare time.
Last year, Zhang opened a new restaurant named Yanjintang, located at a quadrangle courtyard in Beijing. He only serves one table of up to 10 people each day and doesn’t have a menu, so the guests walk in without knowing what they are going to get to eat. Plus, they have to book one month in advance.
“I always want to make something new and I’m always learning about new dishes,” says Zhang. “There is so much to learn about Chinese cuisine.”
For the first couple of months since opening, Zhang has cooked more than 500 different dishes for his clients. When each dish is served, Zhang explains to his diners what ingredients he uses and how he cooks the dish, then, spontaneously, thinks of a name.
“That’s part of the reason I don’t have a menu — the names of the dishes are just improvisation,” he notes.
Zhang first tried to cook when he was in elementary school. One day his grandmother was angry that he did not finish his homework, so she did not cook for him.
Zhang remembered that his father had once showed him how to make egg fried rice, so he just picked up the pot.
What captured Zhang’s imagination was the process of seasoning the fried rice.
“I realized that I could control the food, and make the food whatever flavor I want, which is amazing,” Zhang enthuses.
After finishing junior high school, Zhang chose to study Chinese cuisine at Beijing Jinsong Vocational High School, against his family’s wishes. At the same time, Zhang started to learn practical skills in the kitchen of his uncle’s restaurant.
“I was 15 when I first entered the kitchen, the chefs were all masters specializing in Cantonese cuisine, and they were tough on me,” Zhang recalls.
Each day Zhang had to wake up at 7 am to start a two-hour commute — involving a bicycle ride, the subway and a bus — to the restaurant. “In the winter, my shirts were wet before I even started work,” he recalls.
“I started by carrying the ingredients each day and learning how to prepare the vegetables and clean fish,” Zhang says.
Having seen his hard work and commitment, Zhang’s parents gradually started to come around, changing their mind about his love of cooking.
At the age of 19, he successfully applied to be the chef for pop singer Su Xing’s new restaurant.
“Su Xing was one of the most important people in my life,” Zhang extols.
“He trusted me and gave me the chance to be a chef and let me try new things.”
After working in Su’s restaurant for two years, Zhang co-founded the high-end takeout platform Shetouhenmang (Busy Tongue). The platform received a 3 million yuan ($471,000) angel investment in 2016, but Zhang soon chose to quit.
“I realized that I don’t like standard Chinese food, and I can’t use a machine to make food,” he explains.
“What I want is to have a small and pretty restaurant, from which I can serve and communicate with my guests.”
He picked the quadrangle courtyard and decorated it for three months, finishing it in a color similar to Tiffany blue and with vintage furniture from the first half of the 20th century.
“I want my guests to feel comfortable, like they are at home, in my restaurant, so you would not notice that there are chefs cooking over there,” Zhang says, pointing to the kitchen.
He refuses to set up a profile for Yanjintang on food review websites, as he does not want his restaurant to be so popular and crowded that it loses its intimacy.
Zhang starts each day by going to Sanyuanli Market to find seasonally fresh ingredients, while his staff head to the airport at midnight to collect ingredients that Zhang orders from all over the world. He insists using fresh ingredients.
“My principle of making food is using proper ingredients and simply follow the method, without taking shortcuts,” Zhang explains.
When he cooks chicken soup with figs, he uses a gauze bag with chrysanthemum to filter the soup — the flower is cold and a bit bitter, which can calm the heat of the chicken soup.
He starts his pigeon soup the night before he serves it, as the bird requires steaming with spring water for at least eight hours. You can also find his signature crawfish dish, with flavors such as huadiao wine ice cream or fermented bean curd.
Zhang is passionate about learning new skills and discovering new dishes. As soon as he learns a new recipe, he cooks it for his guests.
“I have a formula in my head — I know how to calculate different seasonings and what flavor I can get — it’s my talent,” he says.
“I also have a pot in my head in which I cook the dishes many times before I cook it in real life.”