Put aside the fact that Brasserie Flo took root in Paris in 1901—or that it was the first French brasserie in China. With a new decree emanating from HQ that demands a fresh, healthy take on Gallic cooking, what was once your grandmother’s heavy, cream- and butter-laden menu has become a truly contemporary carte du jour. Marseille-born chef Bertrand Combe hand-picks ingredients at the market daily, enabling the freshest tomato-mozzarella salad we’ve ever tasted in Beijing (which, when paired with a creative parmesan sherbet, made for a classic truly reborn). The wild mushroom risotto with black truffle was at once gooey and toothy: equal parts grain to fungus and none of that rice-pudding mush found elsewhere. Delicious fresh juices (such as kiwi-celery-pear-cilantro) and inventive sorbets home-made daily (beetroot, yellow pepper, rhubarb & basil…oh my!) make Flo preferable even to Element Fresh or HaagenDazs. With a set lunch menu priced competitively (RMB68 two courses, RMB98 three), we were pleasantly surprised by the impeccable service and crispy warm bread. So pleasantly, seated out on the patio, it felt like Paris again.

Find it: 2/F, Rainbow Plaza, 16 Dongsanhuan Beilu,东三环北路16号隆博广场2楼,
Tel: 6595-5135