A right royal restaurant

Restaurant review | Ye Jun

Empresses and royalty used to dine in the Summer Palace, an extravagant park built for the sole amusement of the last rulers of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). No wonder then that the opulent beauty and grandeur of the restaurant still awes the modern diner.

Ting Li Guan, an imperial-style restaurant inside the Summer Palace, has an equally poetic name, which translates to "a place to listen to the yellow oriole". Birdsong is compared to the beautiful melodies in opera and music, and it is this name that the dowager empress Ci Xi (1835-1908) gave to this restaurant where she entertained foreign diplomats, court officials and the emperor's wives.