BrunchLicious! Top 3 Of My Favorite Brunches in Beijing!

By Meirav Markowitz | April 11, 2014

My favorite meal of the day is definitely Brunch! Well, I love breakfast too but only to have it during lunchtime. So, when I came to Beijing I was really excited to have so many good options for Sunday’s brunch.

In Israel, we have different days for weekend: Friday and Saturday (Sunday is the first working day of the week). Usually Friday is a short day for lots of companies and then on Saturday it is a relaxing time to spend with friends and family. During the summer I used to go to the beach almost every Saturday and then went for lunch to eat humus. During winter time usually we had family gathering for lunch, the traditional “Cholent” (Jewish stew). Every family in Israel have its own special recipe which is a bit different than the other’s but it’s always really good and really heavy! Which means that you just want to go to sleep afterwards.

So, when I came to China not only that the days of the weekends were different but also the traditional meals changed too. Since most of my friends in Beijing are western I got familiar with the term of “Sunday’s brunch” and I have to say that I just love it! 🙂

So here are my top 3 western Sunday brunch’s in Beijing:

1. Westin hotel

The first thing I love about their brunch is the way they named it: “BubbaLicious”. Try to say it out loud, it’s just fun and sounds delicious! The Westin hotel is the biggest “all you can eat” buffet I have ever seen in my life! The verity of food that you have there is quite impressive, they have: Indian food, Chinese food, Japanese food, Mexican food, Italian food, Spanish food and lots and lots more.. I love it that on my plate I can have: Peking duck, Nan Indian bread, Pizza, salad and a small croissant.

The best part of buffet is the special room of all the deserts! OMG this is the room of heaven! With so many different colorful cupcakes!

There is usually a jazz band playing and a bubbalicious girls walking around with lollipop skirts.

The food is great and if you pay the extra free-flow champagne you can stay there the whole day for at least 3 meals!

2. Grace hotel

A beautiful boutique hotel located in the northeast gate of Beijing’s art district 798.

First I have to say that I was a bit surprised from the amazing unique design of the hotel and the restaurant. From the main road you enter into a patio and from one side you see a big industrial building with graffiti painting on it and on the other side a bricks old building that looks more like a boarding school from the 20^th century.

You enter from a small door into a well design lobby of the hotel and beautiful black& white restrooms.  I have booked a table for 10 people outside in a lovely rare sunny day on a Sunday noon of course.

The set menu goes like that: every table gets an amazing seafood platter and then you need to choose from the menu 4 courses: starter, main dish, Asian dish and desert. I would definitely recommend the pumpkin soup that comes with a slice of baguette with Foie gras on top of it, a soft egg with spinach; amazing cheeseburger comes with a sunny side up egg.

For the drinks I will recommend to have their excellent bloody Mary!

The desert was also amazingly good! The chocolate soufflé, the apple tart and the sweet chocolate vanilla ice cream with blueberries.

3. Capital M

Every time my friends or family come for a visit in Beijing we have to take them to some of most touristic places in Beijing: “The forbidden city” and “Tiananmen square”. I have to say that for me it’s already boring to go to the same places over and over again but the fact that I know that afterwards we will go for the Sunday brunch at Capital M makes it so much better!

So, as you probably figured out, the restaurant is very close by (walking distance) and located at a beautiful promenade street called Qianmen, on the 3^rd floor you can sit outside on a lovely terrace with a great view to one of the city gates.

I love it that the moment you sit you get a breadbasket with butter and jam; you can order a nice Mimosa or champagne and have free flow of tea and coffee that comes out in a really nice colorful cups.

You can select from the menu 2 or 3 courses. I always like to order the blueberry pancakes for starter, then the egg Benedict that comes on an English muffin one with spinach and the other with ham and last but not least the amazing fruit pavlova! Yummy!!!!

My fiancé and I like this place very much, we had celebrated our engagement party there with all of our best friend in Beijing and also took our photos for the “Save The Date” invites 🙂

The best part of living as an expat is that you get to be a tourist during the weekend and discover new places.. I’m sure there are plenty of more great Brunch places! Can’t wait for the next one 😉