What to eat in Beijing
11 dishes, from roast duck to street food

This is what Beijing is known for the world over. A specially raised duck is roasted until the skin turns a glossy mahogany, then a skilled chef carves it into more than a hundred slices in minutes, each with a sliver of crisp skin. How to eat it: dip a piece of crisp skin in sugar first, then lay duck on a thin pancake, smear on sweet bean sauce, add cucumber and spring onion, and roll it up. One dish tells the whole story of the imperial capital.

If duck is the special-occasion dish, zhajiangmian is the everyday lunch that every Beijing household eats. Thick, chewy wheat noodles topped with a rich, salty sauce of fried yellow soybean paste (tianmianjiang) and minced pork, served with a generous pile of shredded raw vegetables — cucumber, bean sprouts, radish — that change with the season. Toss it all together before you eat; the fresh veg cuts through the heavy sauce. Cheap, filling, and satisfying in the most unfussy way.

Beijing's most iconic street breakfast. A thin wheat-and-mung-bean batter is spread across a hot round griddle, an egg cracked and smeared over it, then scattered with scallions and cilantro, brushed with soybean and chili sauce, and folded around a crisp fried cracker (baocui). Your first bite hits all of it at once — soft crêpe, crunchy cracker, fragrant egg, all in one parcel. Made hot to order and handed over to eat on the move, for under ten yuan.

Real Beijing hotpot isn't the fiery red Sichuan kind — it's a donut-shaped copper pot with a central chimney heated by charcoal, holding a clear broth seasoned with little more than ginger, scallion, jujube and a few mushrooms. The star is paper-thin mutton, swished through the boiling broth for seconds until it changes colour, then dipped in a rich sesame sauce with garlic, chives and fermented tofu. Simple, warming, exactly right when Beijing turns bitterly cold — locals say late autumn into winter is the time for it.

Let's be upfront: douzhi is a fermented mung-bean drink, greyish-green, sour and powerfully pungent. Older Beijingers adore it and have drunk it for breakfast their whole lives — but most visitors take one sip and grimace. It's sour and funky enough that plenty of people can't finish the cup. This is a flavour you genuinely have to be open-minded about. Locals drink it with jiaoquan (crisp fried dough rings) dipped in, plus salty pickles to balance it out. If you want a real taste of old Beijing, order a small cup first. Don't force it if it's not for you — and that's completely normal.

This is old Beijing's life story in a bowl — pork offal (intestine, lung, belly) simmered in a deep, savoury broth alongside fried tofu and thick baked flatbread (huoshao) that soaks up the soup until it's tender and dripping. Served piping hot, heavy with spice and full-flavoured. To be honest, this one is offal-forward: if you're comfortable with organ meats, you'll find a hearty, deeply satisfying dish that locals have eaten for generations. If offal isn't your thing, it probably shouldn't be your first stop.

An old-school Beijing street food — tripe (beef or lamb stomach) cut into bite-sized pieces and blanched in boiling water for just a few seconds, so it comes out springy and crunchy rather than chewy or tough, then dipped in a rich sesame sauce with garlic and scallion, much like the hotpot dip. The skill is all in the timing: too long and it's rubbery, too short and it's raw, so the old shops nail the seconds exactly. It goes brilliantly with a cold beer in a lane at night. A real Beijing flavour for anyone who likes offal.

The street sweet that defines a Beijing winter — hawthorn berries (small, tart, red) threaded onto a stick and dipped in hot molten sugar that sets into a hard, clear shell. You bite through with a satisfying crack, then hit the sharp, fruity hawthorn underneath, which balances the sugar perfectly. The colder the air, the harder and crisper the candy sets. These days you'll also see strawberries, grapes and kumquats on skewers, but the classic hawthorn version is still the favourite. Look for them on street corners and at temple fairs.

Beijing has a roster of old palace-era snacks and sweets you rarely find done well elsewhere — lvdagunr (驴打滚, "rolling donkey"), a glutinous-rice roll filled with red bean and dusted in toasted soybean flour until golden · wandouhuang (豌豆黄), a chilled, silky-smooth pea-flour cake that's barely sweet and melts in the mouth · and aiwowo (艾窝窝), soft white glutinous-rice balls with a sweet filling. All three were once court treats, all cost a few yuan, and you can find the full set in one place at Huguosi Street.

The name means "stir-fried liver," but it's really a thick stew of pork liver and intestine in a glossy, starch-thickened gravy that's powerfully garlicky. It's a classic Beijing breakfast, traditionally eaten with pork-filled steamed buns (baozi). The texture is silky from the starch, with soft liver and springy intestine. To be honest, this is another offal-forward dish — and the local way to eat it is to sip from the rim of the bowl, turning it as you go, no spoon. If you're fine with organ meats and a hit of garlic, this is a genuine Beijing breakfast for a few yuan.

To round things out, a dish everyone at the table will happily eat — jiaozi, plump boiled dumplings, are a staple of northern China and Beijing. People here eat them on important occasions, especially Lunar New Year's Eve. Favourite fillings are pork and cabbage, pork with chives and egg, and beef with onion, all wrapped in hand-rolled dough and boiled until they bob to the surface. Dip them in black vinegar with a little garlic and chili oil. They're warming, filling and friendly to everyone. If you're travelling as a group and want a shared dish that pleases the whole table, jiaozi is the safe answer.