Top eateries get to feast on bonanza at year-end

By Meng Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-11 07:58

Luxury cars take all the parking spaces in front of a high-end restaurant beside the East Third Ring Road by 5 pm yesterday. Wang Jing

Expensive restaurants enjoy a booming time as businesses seek to impress

Beijing's high-end restaurants are savoring a tasty business boost, with entrepreneurs lining up to host extravagant meals for business partners before the lunar new year begins.

He Zhifu, secretary-general of the Beijing Food and Catering Association, said the weeks before Spring Festival are a golden time for business dinners.

"Though there is no clear boundary between a business dinner and friends getting together, most people choose high-class restaurants to hold this kind of dinner," He told METRO yesterday.

He added that "extravagance" and "style" were the most important ingredients.

"Business people prefer private dining rooms in nice restaurants," He said. "Most business dinners are expensive because people want to look good when dining with their business partners."

Sun Jie, a public relations manager with Fantong.com - an online restaurant booking website in China - said the site has helped make 3,000 bookings for business dinners in January. The number was four times more than in other months.

Top eateries get to feast on bonanza at year-end

"There are around 30,000 restaurants in Beijing currently, about 10 percent of them are evaluated 'suitable for a business dinner' by our clients," she said. "An elegant dining environment and exquisite dishes are business people's top concerns."

Sun hesitated to guess at the average cost of the business dinners but said customers spend much more on them than they would on family dinners and friendly get-togethers.

A spokesperson from Yi No 16 business club in Dongcheng district said the restaurant, which is in a corner of Ditan Park with a view of an imperial garden, has been full for weeks.

"We have 35 private dining rooms in our restaurant and we've been fully booked all month. People need to book two days in advance if they want to eat in one of our private dining rooms," said an employee taking care of the club's reservations hotline.

"Bookings increased by around 30 percent in January. About 60 percent of our customers are business people and they spend an average of more than 500 yuan per person. Most of our cuisine includes abalone and shark fins," she said, pointing out that an extra 15 percent service fee and the cost of wines should be added to her estimate.

Shun Fung, another high-class restaurant famous for its seafood, is also seeing business boom.

A woman, surnamed Li, who works in Shun Fung's Yayuncun outlet, said all 40 private dining rooms have been fully booked since January and reservations have been up by 25 percent compared to other months.

"Private dining rooms are for business dinners. They usually spend 600 yuan to 800 yuan per person, wines are not included and we charge another 10 percent for our service," Li said.

Pei Shengbin, a sales engineer with Beijing Yeke Steels Trading Company, said the choice of restaurant, the dishes and the wine were the three major elements needed to impress business partners.

"No one wants to lose face when inviting their business partners to have dinner. Dishes like abalone are a must, even if no one really likes eating it," Pei said.

Pei spent around 3,000 yuan on a six-person dinner last week.

"The wine cost 1,380 yuan but it was a dinner with our key partners," he said. "My boss told me there was no financial limit when dining with them."

(China Daily 02/11/2010 page25)