Beijing: Where to Eat: Cocktails: La Baie des Anges

La Baie des Anges

This is a real oddity: a French wine bar located in a traditional courtyard hutong. Côte d’Azur–born brothers Olivier and Ben Six used the connections of a Beijing-born family friend to establish this unusual operation, located on the fringes of the popular Hou Hai Lake area. The streets around there are the setting for one of the city’s best collection of hutongs, perfect for puttering around on foot or by bicycle rickshaw, and also increasingly home to snug bars and restaurants. Most places are local attempts at Western-style cafes and cocktail lounges; La Baie des Anges is the real deal, a French-run bar with its own menu of personally imported wines. A great place to stop off at after a hard day’s sightseeing, as part of a bar hop around the city or, on weekends, for an early-hours nightcap. Expect to share bar space with a cosmopolitan crowd—French embassy staff, Swedish bankers, British teachers, German engineers. Next door is another unlikely venture, Hutong Pizza, which you reach by tiptoeing along the edges of a courtyard goldfish pond. This tiny stone-floored restaurant is popular with both locals and expats.