New restaurant allows visitors to eat like royalty in the Forbidden City

The decor of the restaurant combines traditional imperial palace elements and cultural and creative ideas originating from the Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, a former Chinese imperial palace complex.

A copy of a part of the painting of an imperial feast hosted by emperor Qianlong at the Ziguangge Pavilion covers the west wall of the restaurant.

The original painting by Yao Wenhan is now at the Palace Museum.

The north wall of the restaurant features portraits of five Qing emperors and empress, including emperor Qianlong and empress Fucha whose love stories are featured in the TV series Story of Yanxi Palace and Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace.

"We want the diners to feel an attachment to the Palace Museum, and learn more about its stories while enjoying the food," Shi says.

As for the hotpot, the restaurant currently serves one base soup -the empress Dowager Cixi's favorite chrysanthemum one - together with five sauces in five colors.

The chrysanthemum soup base uses pig bones and mountain ginseng from Northeast China, which are boiled for more than 24 hours with a dozen other ingredients such as Chinese wolfberry or gouqi, jujube and longan.

According to Shi, the culinary team is now researching the hotpot enjoyed by emperor Qianlong and planning to launch a new soup base next month.

The menu is in the form of an imperial edict, while the table sign holder features an emperor sitting on a horse shooting an arrow and surrounded by two dogs.

The restaurant also sells Palace Museum souvenirs.

As far as food goes, the restaurant is not the only temptation in the area.

The west side of the red houses has a cafe, which opened on Dec 1. And it sells coffee and dessert. But influences from the Palace Museum proliferate.

Even the take-away cups have popular elements from the Palace Museum like Qianli Jiangshan Tu(A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains) and the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

The hot chocolate that emperor Kangxi used to drink is a popular drink and pictures of the red take-away coffee cup are often posted on social media platforms such as Sina Weibo and Instagram.

The Palace Museum is closed on Mondays, but both the Corner Tower Restaurant and the cafe are open seven days a week.