Beijing Roast Duck

Beijing roast duck is the city's most iconic dish: a whole duck roasted over a fruitwood fire and sliced thin, with crackling skin and tender meat in a deep amber sheen — one of Chinese cuisine's calling cards to the world.

The art of roast duck reaches back to imperial palace kitchens; brought to Beijing from Nanjing in the Ming and Qing and perfected there, it split into the hung-oven and closed-oven schools to become a signature of the capital.

The duck is carved at the table; you take a thin pancake, lay in a few slices with shredded scallion and cucumber, brush on sweet bean sauce and roll it up. The carcass is often turned into a soup or fried with salt-and-pepper, so nothing is wasted.

Its magic is in the interplay of skin, meat, sauce and pancake: the skin shatters and melts, the meat is rich without heaviness, and the sweet sauce and scallion cut through it — every roll a balance of hot and cool, crisp and tender. It is the one dish to try in Beijing.