The 70-year-old Fangshan Restaurant is situated in the Beihai Park. It is well-known at home and abroad for its court dishes, especially cakes, pastries, and dishes originating from the Forbidden City in Qing Dynasty. The beautiful scenery it commands, its palace-style gallery, and its plain yet elegant furnishings make it a charming place to dine.

The restaurant offers over 800 court dishes. The most special among them are phoenix-tail shark fin, jade abalone, first-rank bird’s nest, fried shrimp, tribute fish, and quick-fried chicken chest. Famous refreshments are: mashed pea cake, kidney bean roll, (steamed cake made of corn flour), and sesame-seed baked flat cake with meat filling.

The most renowned dish made by Fangshan is the Complete Manchu and Han Banquet. In making the banquet, expensive materials such as eight treasures of the mountain, eight treasures of the ocean, eight treasures of the fowls, and eight treasures of the herb are used; some of the dishes are roasted in the Manchu style, and some are stewed, braised, boiled, or fried in the Han style. It is little short of an encyclopedia of Manchu and Han food culture. A complete version of the banquet is divided into 4 to 6 meals. For the convenience of its customers, the restaurant has launched a new version compressing the banquet into one meal by offering the pick of the bunch.