Flamme offers service and style for a relative bargain among steakhouses in Beijing. The bruschetta comes topped with wild mushrooms and Himalayan black truffles is in fact a generous portion of button mushrooms sautéed with a liberal dose of truffle oil. A petite Australian tenderloin (RMB 148/198) was done and served with a tart watercress and cherry tomato salad. A dozen sides (RMB 22) are listed, including addictive matchstick fries and gingered baby carrots. The vegetable lasagna was pasta-less, but layers of zucchini and goat cheese made it a savory non-meat option. Service is excellent, as well as the dessert: the brioche bread pudding was a treat.

Still Burning

Second Bite Review, August, 2011

One of our biggest complaints about salads is that the cheese advertised in the name rarely makes more than a guest appearance atop the greens. At Flamme, however, the reverse is true. The avocado, fig, pine nut and rocket salad (¥48), one of the new dishes on the restaurant’s revamped menu, is a cluster of rocket leaves buried under a pile of nuts, avocado bits and slices of cheese. We’re not sure about Flamme’s claim that the dish is “healthy,” but we are confident that it’s delicious. As are “Uncle Bill’s twice-baked potatoes” (¥22), a potato cut in half, with its innards scooped out and mashed with sour cream and bacon bits, then re-inserted into the baked shells. The dish has a much more down-home-Western-cooking feel to it than similar potato creations at nearby Western restaurants such as Union Bar & Grille.

The house red and white wines (¥45/glass) are a great complement to the tenderloin (¥198), a thick cut of Australian grass-fed beef that was cooked medium-rare just as we ordered. The dish comes with a choice of sides, and we recommend the sautéed mushrooms, which go well with the gravy and slightly sweet biscuits.

We’ve heard numerous complaints about the uneven service at Flamme. We found it earnest, if a bit unsteady. But management is clearly on the ball, with the floor manager swooping in to help our waitress when she stumbled with our order, clearing up the problem in seconds. It’s definitely a nice change to see hands-on management in Beijing, where servers are so often left to their own sulky devices.

Laura Fitch