From Blufish's pink undersea world to the florally accentuated Tomacado, a whimsical approach to dining is sweeping Beijing's restaurants. Li Yingxue reports.
From pink ceilings to pink chairs, as soon as you walk into Blufish, the little girl trapped inside of you is readily summoned.
And you can't resist whipping out your phone, and sharing photos of this strange, pink world with your friends on WeChat and Weibo, and you're sure to get dozens of likes.
Blufish is a newly opened restaurant featuring pink decorations and delicate, brightly-colored food in the Wangfujing area of Beijing. In the past year, several new restaurants aimed at attracting female customers have popped up, presenting a fine dining environment for "besties".
Designed by SODA Architects, the interior space of Blufish is predominantly white in color but intertwined with pink designs partially covering the ceilings and extending down to the floor to create a fluid and ethereal underwater world.
The curved surfaces in the middle of the restaurant divides the space into four separate "submarine caves" which house dining areas.
The designers used hand-drawn fairytale patterns featuring coral, aquatic plants and fish joined to mesh that hugs the curved white surfaces to create a magnificently translucent and submerged visual effect.
"People will feel relaxed as if they are experiencing a Mediterranean breeze from Southern France here," says Alex Wang, owner of Blufish.
Blufish has set out to provide French cuisine in an American style. Wang aims to create an "effortless eating" reputation for Blufish as he believes that high quality food can be presented in a simple way.
"People living a fast-paced modern lifestyle can enjoy a range of healthy, delicious, delicate and creative dishes," says Wang, who owns three cafes named Someday in Tianjin.
"Croissant pizza" is one dish that represents this approach, combining as it does a typical French pastry with American style toppings - the crisp crust and different types of meat give it a rich taste, while the small size of the croissant means it only needs two bites to finish.
Balancing rich flavors with low calories for their dishes, Blufish also serve salads, snacks, soup, pasta, egg benedicts and paella.
According to Wang, they are testing brand-new "pink dishes" and plan to update the menu in March.
Just across the street from Blufish, the second restaurant by Tomacado opened in January, offering an upgraded mix of flowers and food.
Floristry and cooking were once the two favorite hobbies of Kong Jie, owner of Tomacado. She took it one step further in 2015 and quit her job in finance and to open her first Tomacado restaurant in Beijing's Sanlitun area, which soon became popular on the internet because of its floral dining environment.
"I didn't just copy the first one to create the second restaurant. I changed the style a little bit. If the first Tomacado looks like a young girl, then the second one is more like a mature woman," says Kong.
The new Tomacado is divided into several areas by different floral arrangements. "The girlfriend zone is mainly decorated in pink, while the gentleman's zone looks like a jungle with palms and ferns," says Kong.
"Tomacado" comes from the words tomato and avocado, two ingredients that Kong uses most when she cooks for her daughter, and also the most common on Tomacado's menu.
Every dish Tomacado creates uses edible flowers, and fresh vegetables are also regularly on the menu. Kong often draws inspiration for dishes from life and then adds them to her menu. "To use chili powder from my hometown in Guizhou province as a dip for roast chicken was my father's suggestion - and it turned out to be one of the most popular dishes here," say the 35-year-old.
Besides managing her restaurants, Kong also designs peripheral products for female customers, such as her latest design that she recently had printed - a pink notebook.
Flowers are everywhere in Tomacado, and in the entrance Kong has a small florist's shop. She not only hopes that men will buy flowers for their girlfriends or wives, but also that women will buy a beautiful bouquet to please themselves.
Opened last year, Blanko Mini Market is another popular site for online besties at Joy City in Beijing's Chaoyang district. It's a coffee-and-dessert shop combined with a furnishing, magazine and arts store.
From Danish furnishing brand Hay's toothbrush and Italian pop art Seletti's plates to tapes and notebooks, each element at Blanko Mini Market has proved a hit with customers, especially the younger ones.
