Feast like a Brit in Beijing

Traditional fare at Alfie’s by Dunhill comes courtesy of chef Liu Xin, who went native to see just what tickles British taste buds. Ye Jun reports from Beijing.

A young Chinese chef ’s version of British cuisine is winning acclaim among Beijingers.

With the opening of British-style restaurant Alfie’s by Dunhill, many people are asking chef Liu Xin what food constitutes British cuisine. Only four months earlier, he was asking his boss the same question.

That was when the restaurant was being prepared, and the management of Eclat Beijing hotel asked Liu, its executive chef, to front the menu of Alfie’s.

With 20 years cooking experience, Liu is adept in Mediterranean, French and Spanish cuisines, but he was not sure what British cuisine really was.

He checked websites and read books, and found the most recognized British food is fish and chips.

The next most popular is Sunday roast beef. Ranked third are various pies — cottage pie, shepherd’s pie, and fish pie.

There are also savory or sweet puddings, the best

is always known being Yorkshire pudding, which prepared and eaten with roast beef. But that wasn’t quite enough. “What Chinese chefs lack when cooking Western cuisine is a good understanding of local life and culture,” he says.

“The chef must have worked in the place or country.”

e 37-year-old decided to make use of his annual vacation and visited London for nine days in February. And then he ate.

At the end of the trip, he had spent about 30,000 yuan ($4,893) out of his own pocket just on food.

He made reservations on Top-table, a popular restaurant booking website in the UK. The first he visited, Hawksmoor Air Street Restaurant, was for roast beef.

“It was two beautiful chunks of beef with Yorkshire pudding,” he says.

Then he went to The Wolseley for breakfast. He