By 2025, Beijing's blueprint for becoming an international gourmet capital is materializing into vibrant, everyday scenes. A release from the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau on January 26th revealed that the number of catering service units in Beijing is set to exceed 130,000 by 2025. The city has designated 22 "Night Beijing"打卡地, cultivated 24 specialty dining clusters, and fostered 31 "Midnight Canteen"特色餐饮街区, adding warm highlights and consumption heat to the urban landscape.
Culinary experiences are breaking boundaries through cross-industry integration. Models like "dining + sports events" and "dining + concerts" have shown remarkable success. International top-tier events such as the China Open and WTT Grand Slam have partnered with quality dining establishments, while a Gourmet Film Carnival was held during the Beijing International Film Festival, successfully converting the foot traffic from sports and entertainment into tangible consumption growth. Concurrently, Beijing is vigorously promoting the integration of quality dining into tourist attractions, parks, and museums. Cultural venues like the Beijing Art Academy Museum and the Summer Palace have introduced catering services, a creative food and beverage space has been established within the Grand Canal Museum, the city's first art gallery run by a time-honored餐饮老字号 has opened, and the nation's first restaurant themed around the classic novel "Dream of the Red Chamber" has commenced operations, enriching the cultural experience dimension.
In 2025, 99 Beijing restaurants were selected for the Michelin Guide; 142 made it onto the大众点评必吃榜, ranking second nationally in terms of numbers. Throughout the year, the city successfully attracted 601餐饮品牌首店, accounting for 56% of all首店 introductions in the city, demonstrating robust market vitality. Fourteen master studios for culinary skills have been established, nearly 4,000 individuals have obtained professional qualifications as chefs or pastry chefs, and the 15th Commercial Service Industry Skills Competition attracted over 2,000 contestants from the餐饮行业, building a solid talent reserve for the industry's continued prosperity.
Simultaneously, the push to enhance international service capabilities has yielded significant results. Efforts have led to approximately 15,000餐饮零售商户 across the city accepting foreign card payments, while餐饮门店 in key locations like airports and train stations have comprehensively optimized English-language services, creating a more friendly and convenient payment and language environment that showcases Beijing's service quality. Brand activities spanning all seasons and connecting the entire city have been a highlight. Municipal and district levels jointly hosted over 100餐饮盛宴, ranging from regional特色活动 like the Huairou Film and Food Carnival and the "Taste Daxing" Carb Festival, to international culinary events such as the International Beverage and Snack Festival and the Global Carb Carnival, and further to local flavor promotions like the "Qianmen Chinese Food Fair" held in collaboration with provincial government offices stationed in Beijing, creating a continuous stream of exciting events.
Among these, the Beijing International Food Festival series of brand activities, held from June to October, became a phenomenal consumption hotspot. The "Taste of the Capital" Food Festival, organized with 31 provincial offices, attracted over 90,000 visitors and generated transactions exceeding 4.2 million yuan; the International Food Carnival, featuring flavors from 32 countries and regions, drew nearly 300,000 consumers and achieved sales of over 3.6 million yuan, fully unleashing the potential and ripple effects of the festival economy.
Furthermore, technology is providing empowerment, with the launch of the "Efficiently Handle One Thing"专区 making it more convenient to open a restaurant. It is reported that the "informed commitment system" has enabled 14,500 newly opened small餐饮店 to achieve rapid market entry, while non-on-site approval models like "cloud inspections" have improved准入效率. Over 4,000餐饮企业 have been included in a "no disturbance without cause" list, enabling precise and efficient supervision. Meanwhile, the Beijing Municipal Market Supervision Bureau issued the city's first food business license to an embodied intelligent robot, and Haidian District took the lead in releasing the nation's first group standard for intelligent餐饮机器人, laying an institutional foundation for the development of automated equipment like cooking robots and智能饮品站, as well as future scenarios such as unmanned restaurants and smart central kitchens, illustrating how technology is injecting new quality productivity into a traditional industry.