Jiao, the owner and designer of Club Camp: Lounge and Restaurant, named his place after reading Sontag’s seminal essay. Although Camp isn't recognizably camp, it certainly is what-it-is-not. On opening night, it was not a restaurant. The party, hosted by Acupuncture DJs, was simultaneously wild and hip, attended by Jiao’s celebrity pals (including singer Wang Fei’s husband, Li Yapeng). The room was dark and spacious, filled with bouncing, bumping bodies. The next time I stopped by, Club Camp was not a club.

It had transformed into a wide, breathable retreat with comfortable sofa-chairs. Windows stretched to the high ceiling. (To create the open, breezy layout, Jiao had spent a month and a half knocking down walls; he said he filled 10,000 industrial-size trashbags with rubble.) The customers were successful creative-types, and they wandered between the tables chatting with their buddies. Li Yapeng was there again.

“This is not a place,” said Jiao, “but a space. We will have jazz and electronic shows. This is a cafe and a restaurant and a lounge.” And, presumably, a club. But this time, it wasn’t. At least once a month, though, it will be. That’s camp.

A painter, director, producer, restaurateur, and advertiser, Jiao is everything but a barman. The mojito (RMB 35) was sweet and tasteless, although the champagne mojito (RMB 60) did meet muster in a long-necked glass. The food is excellent (approximately RMB 70/entree). A Yunnanese chef, snagged from a Shanghai restaurant, cooks up dishes that taste like a Bangkok market snack-bag, with simple and stylish presentation.

I generally try to stay away from such schizophrenic establishments, but Camp is so unapologetically what-it-is-not – in such a cool way too – that it will likely match the idea in Jiao’s head when he conceived the space: “The kind of place where people go when they don’t want to head home, but don’t know what else to do.”

Club Camp
Daily 11.30am-1am.
6/F, 8 Gongti Xilu (above Coco Banana), Chaoyang District 6552 4945