CW Beijing's dining columnist reflects on dining between cities
After visiting several of your city's great restaurants, I was impressed by the stress placed on intimacy and warmth in enhancing the dining experience. Beijing continues to pride itself on the size of its skyscrapers and the width of its boulevards. The "au currant" canteens are often factories of food that highlight glass and steel, stone and concrete far better than the savory, delicate and natural fare diners intend to ingest. In Beijing, bigger is better; in Shanghai, the "devil is in the details."

Beijing historically stressed the immediate, private interactions between individuals over food, and a quick peek inside a siheyuan shows this. Xu Xiaoling, manager of Source, one of Beijing's most popular Sichuan restaurants, explains that they "want to keep things small so people will not be overwhelmed and be able feel at home." Like award-winning Dali, a Yunnan courtyard restaurant down a narrow hutong, both capitalize on nostalgic remains, providing intimate, partitioned rooms. In addition to these centuries-old locales, some newer restaurants seem to understand the balance between style, environment and, of course, food.

In my experience, this was evident consistently in Shanghai. Even amidst the modernist art deco stylings of M on the Bund (Fusion), the interior design, music and wait staff were muted enough so that the food and guests, not the surroundings, spoke volumes. Rowdy conversations and small tables enhance the focus on intimacy and hominess. "Restaurants are places for people to exchange ideas, to hang out and talk. They have to feel authentic and organic and, above all, comfortable," stresses M's Michelle Garnaut. Casa 13 (Mediterranean) was so comfortable that it became natural for owner/ impresario Eduardo Vargas and I to slide into an afternoon of imbibing and chatting as though we'd known each other for years. He explained that he was so committed to enhancing the ambiance that he'd even removed the distracting artwork hanging on the former gallery's walls.

In Beijing, many people complain they're tired of eating in massive concrete boxes dressed up to attempt some sort of cultural heritage or culinary authenticity. What Beijing's food purveyors lack is an unassuming and approachable ambiance. For all of Shanghai's bravura and boasting, I found dining here to speak softly ... and to carry a big stick. Your city seems to understand that the dinner and the diners-not the decor-should dominate.

Manuela Zoninsein