Why Hangzhou’s 2-Michelin-star Ru Yuan is ‘a restaurant unlike any other’
Ru Yuan’s chef Fu Yueliang shares why everything from local dishes to design at his restaurant is about transcending Song-dynasty tradition
Anybody with rudimentary knowledge of Chinese culture will recognise Hangzhou as a byword for refined gastronomy.
Today, to be familiar with modern China’s fine-dining scene is to know the name Fu Yueliang. The Hangzhou native trained at Zhiweiguan, a century-old Hangzhou institution that once prepared banquets for foreign dignitaries, and is a third-generation disciple of chef Dong Shunxiang, a master of the cuisine of Zhejiang, the province in which Hangzhou is located.
Fu rose to fame at 28 Hubin Road, at the Hyatt Regency Hangzhou, where he revolutionised his hometown’s cuisine from 2004 to 2011. During this period, he popularised a pagoda-shaped rendition of dongpo rou – a classic Hangzhou dish made by pan-frying and then red-cooking pork belly – fashioned from a single strip of carefully carved braised pork belly.
Fu opened Ru Yuan in 2023. The two-Michelin-star restaurant sits within the Hangzhou Botanical Garden – which operates both as a public park and research area dedicated to plant cultivation – near the northwest end of West Lake.