Peking Duck
Beijing, Beijing Municipality
Crispy-skinned roast duck carved tableside and wrapped in thin pancakes with scallion, cucumber, and sweet bean sauce. The dish Beijing is most famous for worldwide.
Why visit Peking Duck?
Peking duck's reputation rests almost entirely on the skin, which is why the dish is built around a slow-roasting process designed to render fat away while keeping the skin thin, dry, and crisp rather than fatty. This is also why the duck is carved tableside in better restaurants — it's treated as a small piece of theater as much as a meal, with the carving itself part of what diners are paying for. It's one of the few Chinese regional dishes that became internationally famous largely unchanged, so eating it in Beijing is as much about comparing the real version against the simplified one most visitors already know.
How to experience it
The standard way to eat it is wrapping a piece of duck, skin included, in a thin pancake with scallion strips, cucumber, and a sweet bean sauce, rather than eating the duck on its own. Because the duck is roasted whole to order at many restaurants, there's often a wait between ordering and serving, and it's common practice to order it as soon as you sit down so the rest of the meal can be timed around it. Most restaurants will also offer to use the carcass for a simple duck soup afterward, which is considered part of the full meal rather than a separate dish.
Tip
Order in advance at busier restaurants — the duck is roasted to order and can take 30-45 minutes, so put your order in as soon as you sit down.