Taverna+
1949—The Hidden City, Courtyard 4, Gongti Beilu,
Sanlitun
Behind Pacific Century Place South gate.
工体北路四号院
6501-8882
www.elite-concepts.com
oft@elite-concepts.com
Open 11am-10:30pm
Price Y200-Y299 per couple
Accepts International Credit Cards
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- City Weekend says
Housed in 1949—The Hidden City's renovated industrial courtyard complex, this nicely designed restaurant serves a range of Mediterranean food, as well as some Asian cuisine. The tom yum kung and Yunnan honey panna cotta both particularly stand out. Service is impeccable.
- Contributor Description
SUNDAY BRUNCH @ TAVERNA+
There is nothing like delicious aromas of BBQ wafting across your Sunday brunch. When it comes with an alfresco element, there will be no better choice than Taverna+ @ 1949. Tender meat; health salad plus selection of wines from all around world... Every Sunday from 11pm – 4pm
Price at ￥138 per person, plus ￥30 for a carafe of house wine (500ml) Reservation: 6501 8882 Address: courtyard 4, gong ti bei lu, chaoyang district, Beijing, 100027
Contributed by cindy1949
4 years, 1 month ago
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cityweekend
Most Recent Reviews
It's all in the details. The details at Taverna don't live up to reasonable expectations of such an establishment. One accepts, even expects, that there will be things with which to take exception in lower profile and lesser priced taverns. However, in a restaurant where you spend 1,200+ RMB for two, sans appetizers or desert, things like under baked potatoes make themselves noticed not dissimilarly to unwanted guests while it is entirely reasonable, in fact responsible as a patron, to have the reasonable expectation that everything should, at the very least, be prepared properly if not impeccably . For better than half, our meal at Taverna was quite delicious. The miniature Yorkshire pudding with gravy was a welcome treat, as was the squash soup. Our beef was very good, though of improper texture in some spots - overall excellent but not particularly memorable in the greater scheme fine dining. Caesar Salads consist, when correctly prepared, of medium to smaller sized whole leaves of Romaine (though it is sadly rare to find such restaurants). They most certainly do not consist of a rather dense heap of chopped leaves drowning in creamy dressing as we were served. Mistakes such as these are not due to any unavailability of produce or deep mystery of preparation, they are simply careless and amateur, or worse cavalier.
When you promote your restaurant in the fashion of Taverna, have menu offerings as it has, where the least expensive wine option is an average merlot requiring 230 RMB for a mere 2/3 of a bottle in a carafe, you clearly advertise yourself as a superior establishment and invite your patrons to expect things to be of a consistently superior quality in every way. You also run the risk of appearing chintzy when you cut corners on things like beverages or other high profit items in tandem with a relatively expensive meal...even a bit insulting perhaps. I don't mind spending money, but I do mind being taken advantage of. There are countless restaurants where such blemishes do not occur at far lesser prices. Call me what you will but, if I pay 600 RMB for a meal and a glass of wine, I do want my potato to be cooked and my salad to be prepared properly... and neither are entirely difficult.
For many people, who want a very nice ambience, which Taverna does have - it is lovely - and who don't care about or wouldn't know if their meal is up to par, Taverna will please. However, for the ever so slightly more discriminating diner, it is a bit like a movie set - not the real thing, at least not on the only night I will have ever eaten there.
Oh dear... This place is going down scale again. I was there recently on two occasions. Once for dinner and the other, Sunday Brunch. I'm not sure about the contributor's "aromas of BBQ wafting across" - perhaps then. When I was there for the Sunday Brunch, no BBQ was in sight. Yes, you do have a choice of 5 main courses (either fish, chicken, pasta, meat and another dish - can't recall). For starters, all they had was a table filled with 3 types of bread including a so-so soft roll, a choice of salad leaves, three choices of regular dressing, and tapas (?) - that consist merely of cold cuts, a couple types of canapes... Limited choices but for the price, I guess it's o.k. Nice ambiance, but food offering is very boring. They could have done so much better...
The Sunday brunch here is a steal. Although the selection is limited, the tapas and dessert buffet were well executed and tasty. Regulars may find the fixed choice of 4 mains a bit limiting. We spent a lovely May Day al fresco enjoying a delicious carafe of house wine (at 30rmb, another good bargain) and the roomy interior will be a good refuge as summer approaches
We had a group of about ten people. After reading some negative reviews posted from one and two years ago, I had my doubts about eating here. However, they must have made an effort to improve over the last year.
This is my first time here and the ambiance is pleasant and modernly elegant. The menu is not cheap, with prices comparable to restaurants in Europe and the U.S. The food is a mix of various cuisine, stretch from club sandwiches to Thai soup. Per Cityweekend's recommendation, I tried the "tom yum kung" soup, which Cityweekend wrote it as "one of the best in the city". Well, I regret trying it, because if that was the best in the city, that means Beijing's Thai food cuisine simply does not exist. Let's just say anyone who has tried a "tom yum kung" from a real Thai restaurant would be disappointed. My advice to the management - get rid of it if you can't make it right.
The food was served reasonably on time. We had some appetizers which I did not particularly remember. For the main course I had the suckling pig and it was flavorful with the apple sauce, roasted garlic, and a sweet tangy sauce. The salad with ham and chicken wasn't bad. The potato with spicy mayonnaise sauce was good too. They served us Chilean red wine - merlot. It was not bad, and the waiter was attentive to keep our glasses filled.
For desert I had the "Yunnan honey panna cotta" and it was not excessively sweet with a strong honey flavor, which I liked. I already tried the fruit tart, which was not too sweet (that's a good thing).
Overall, it was a nice dining experience. The compound of 1949 is a very chic place with nice bars and a balance mixture of foreigners and Chinese. It would be a good place to take a date or a group of friends for a decent meal, but not cheap.
Came back after almost two years since my last review, the restaurant got a new facelift, the interior was more romantic and has a nice feel to it.
Menu has changed since the last time as well, it encompasses more of western and some Asian as well. Their set menu is a knockout deal, with daily specials makes it a lot more interesting. The desset are gorgeous as usual.
Service has improved a lot more, a lot faster, responsive and more attentive. We were the last one to leave the restaurant, but no rush feeling from the staff, in fact they kept on the tea at a perfect temperature.
I would definitely come back for a date again. Nicely done 1949!
Had a great meal there the other day. The seafood paella is amazing! The service is also spot on. Wasn't totally blown away by the suckling pig, but the tiramisu more than makes up for it. YUM!
Definitely not the best dining experience of my life. Average and scarce food, limited menu choices and high prices make this "so called" Mediterranean restaurant a weak option against other similar places in the same part of the town.
Hmmm...
Service is definitely above average, with eagle-eyed waiting staff working closely with the kitchen to ensure things run like clockwork.
Just some minor hiccups here and there ... dirty napkin, serving the next course before its due... but its no biggy when you see how hard they try!
Food quality and taste was just average... surf and turf combo was definitely value for moolah! :)
Good place to wind down!
Just went there last night and I'm afraid the place has deteriorated since my last visit a couple of months ago. It was never great to start with but at least the menu had a good selection of tapas and the big dishes like suckling pig and paella were quite authentic. With the new menu layout it was hard to find the tapas and somehow all the food were very greasy and didn't taste fresh. The desert and my decent double espresso were the only highlight of the evening.
Went to the Hidden City on Saturday night intending to go to the duck place but was ushered into the Taverna. What a beautiful warm interior - high ceilings, dark woods. The food was excellent (except for the overly greasy calamari entree) with our meat dishes cooked as requested and without a hint of that "local country not quite getting __ (insert foreign country) food right" taste. Staff were attentive without being obtrusive. Only disconcerting thing was that the complex itself was rather dead for a Saturday night.
Ambience and company was excellent, pre dinner drinks in the bar was perfect, the staff and bar manager were very attentive and made us feel very welcome. Our entrées were very nice, the mains left a little to be desired, portion size of the NZ lamb a little small. The new style promotional menu looks great, I'll be back to try that next time at only RMB158 per person. 1949 is a great location, the Taverna bar has secured our ongoing patronage, we will be back to try the Chinese restaurant or the Set menu option next time.
my second visit was much better (first being several months back in July). service has improved tremendously and at least this time, we were not "shoo-ed" out like last time (it was 10:30pm and staff were switching off most of the restaurant lights when we just finished our mains!) i have to admit that the main reason our group (of 6) decided to go there was that Mare at Xindonglu was closed for renovation works(?). Hence this is the only other place we could find that serve tapas in a nice surrounding.
Went there on November 10th, for the second time. I thought hey the first time was not very good maybe second time would be a charm. We were the only ones in the bar area, the staff was fast and I mean fast to ask for are order, I literally had not yet sat down and was asked what would I like twice, hold on please let me take my jacket off before I toss down an order. The place is nice inside and my beer well hey it was Carlsberg in a bottle hard to get that wrong, after an hour or so we decide to move on as I don’t like being outnumbered by the staff 2 customers, 5 staff. I think the place has lots of potential although the food was expensive and not that great, I still feel that this place has a bright future as they are most likely just going through some starting pains.
I thought the food was OK, but rather overpriced. The band was very good. The courtyard concept looks great.
Just had a nice dinner at 1/5 Taverna. We tried 9 dishes total at our table and each was lovely. The service was good, the atmosphere was unlike any I have experienced in Beijing and all-in-all a great evening. This will be a regular spot for us.
I guess the service do still have lots of room to improve.
Regarding reservation, they also asked the same thing, so I just reserved at 6.30 at showed up at 7+ and it was fine.
It is extremely hot though if the place is full and the service will be messy, my friend ordered something and ended up not showing, so we just canceled it.
I guess we were only dining for the atmosphere, as mentioned food was just so so overall and I have tried better food, for now I will say they got the concepts, just need to work on quality.
Give it time, it'll work.
I have to say I was extremely disapointed with the service at this place. We went there yesterday as part of a birthday dinner and had reserved a table for 9 people. The whole reseervation process was already not very pleasant as we were told we could only chose 2 times: 18.30 or 20.30. Fine. After not wanting to order a main for everyone (and rather A La carte once there) we were asked to come only at 21.30!! Why?? i don't know... after insisting we got the table for 20.30. Despite being 10 people instead of 9 I wouldn't consider this as a big group to serve in a place like this. The food was slow, the service was unatentive and to top it we got the lights turned off (what they call dimmed to the point you can only see exterior lights) as soon as we were the last customers in the room at 11!!!!... We had a full meal with lots of wine, so it wasn't a cheap snack... for that i expect much more from the service, and DEFINETELY not to have the lights turned off while we were still drinking.
I did mention this to one of the staff as we went out to what she could only come up with a rushed sorry and a "maybe next time this won't happen". Maybe!! right.
All in All, i give it the single star as a combination of the place itself (although it was far too warm inside the place... nice for winter nights) and the food that is still the best i've had for mediterranean like dishes. Don't order the paella though... not worth it.
I'll give 5 for the decor, 3 for the food and 3 for the service. Our food was slow, it just taste ok, service is a bit too slow and it was sooooo hot inside when packed.
But overall it's one of kind dining experience with lots of room to improve.
Hopefully on the next visit......
Ate here with a group of 6 in mid-May. Our food was either bad, or overpriced, or both. Here were some low-lights: Bread - 4 RMB nang from my local xinjiang place is inevitably better, as is the stale bread at April Gourmet. Veggies - Garlic steamed spinach for 30 RMB? I'll pass. Wine - 1/5 glass for 50+ RMB. I guess that's where the restaurant name comes from.
Ditto on the above, though, if you want to blow some $$$ on gorgeous atmosphere and listen to a decent band (except the covers of Hotel California... cringe...) then it's ok. If you want to spend this much money on dinner and actually get good food as well as atmosphere, go all out at Alameda or Green T. House or really anywhere else.
Why are people giving this place 5 stars? I see Time Out also gave them a rave review. Other than the great location and nice interior decor the food is TERRIBLE! We ordered pizza and the salmon and didn't finish either as they were simply inedible. It is unfathomable how someone who cooks for a living (and presumably went to chef school) can produce stuff so unpalatable. No doubt they will do well with the Chinese crowd who associate high-priced Western food and fancy surroundings with class. The band was good though, so not a bad place just to have a drink......
A group of us had dinner here last night, and had a great time. Favorites were the lamb skewers, house salad, tiger prawns, and penne. The best part was the atmosphere. It's in a courtyard right off decking and gardens, has high ceilings, smells of wood, and has a decent live band. Latin music mixed into classic covers, and they played table to table. The bill was painful for a freelancing budget, but reasonable compared to other high-end restaurant. Just keep it easy on the liquor.
When 1/5 Taverna opened just over two years ago, City Weekend’s review was unflattering, to say the least. But recent praise on our website prompted us to return to see what’s changed since 2008.
The restaurant, now named Taverna+, was packed with well-dressed clientele on the evening we visited. While we once criticized Taverna’s bread, this time the bread—now complimentary—was excellent. The other dishes aren’t all perfect, but they’re a far cry from the stuff we trashed as airplane food two years ago. The Taverna salad (¥55) is a good portion of organic greens with a lovely dressing, but we were disappointed to find only two tiny balls of mozzarella and a couple tomatoes. We’ve had better French onion soup (¥48), but the tom yum kung soup (¥55) is deliciously spicy and some of the best we’ve had in the city. We have no complaints about the beautifully presented Australian lamb chops (¥168), which paired very well with the Torres Coronas wine (¥75/glass). The two other monthly wine specials were each ¥58, and pours were much more generous than those that had ignited complaints in the past. Unfortunately, the braised veal osso bucco (¥128) was a mess on the plate and lacking in flavor. The highlight of our meal was the Yunnan honey panna cotta (¥42), a uniquely delicious dessert with a perfect texture and commendable fusion of Western recipe and Chinese ingredients.
The high ceilings, comfortable seating, relaxing music and open kitchen all make for a very nice upscale environment. Service—the restaurant’s strongest suit—is flawless. While there’s still some room for improvement, it’s clear that Taverna has come into its own and is now a good spot for a special meal.
Sienna Parulis-Cook