The Best Breakfast and Brunches in Wudaokou, Beijing

A brunch at Bunny Drop Café will brighten your day. It provides a variety of brunch menus including the classic English breakfast, tuna bagel brunch, and salmon brunch, and all kinds of healthy juices, such as avocado. The café and restaurant are especially favorable for rabbit lovers—your heart is going to melt when you see the rabbit dolls and illustrations in the interior. Remember to take a look at their receipt, on which a beautiful motto is printed.

The Bridge Café is not only a popular brunch restaurant and café in Wudaokou, but also a place full of memories for students and alumni of the colleges nearby. Open 24/7, it is many students’ favorite study room, especially when deadlines loom. Take a seat and start with the signature carrot cake. Not enough? How about a plate of Italian pasta or garlic tuna pasta? The three-floor café is spacious enough for you to have your own private space, and it also has a non-smoking area.

If you are a bakery maniac, paying more attention to the food itself than the comfort level of chairs in store, then you definitely need to try the bread at With Wheat. It features European style bread (in comparison to the Japanese/Taiwan bread), which is usually made from healthy, coarse food grains. It has also unconventional (but fantastic) flavors like red wine bread, black tea bread, and fig bread. Now having 12 shops in Beijing, the bakery is an emerging celebrity among foodies in Beijing after its Taiwanese owner opened the first store some three years ago.

If you are dazed by the massive choices of cuisines you have in Wudaokou and just can’t decide where to go for brunch, then go to Ricci Café. It has Western breakfast like avocado salmon salad and lavender honey toast, and—you definitely won’t imagine this—traditional Beijing noodles with soy bean paste. The weekend menu is said to provide more choices than the weekday menu, so it’s recommended to go to Ricci on the weekends.

Mann Café is probably the most popular café among expats in Beijing. Its cozy atmosphere seems to encourage you to stay for a whole afternoon after your pleasant brunch. It specializes in waffles and pancakes, which are known for their crispy taste on the outside and tender inside. You can either choose a classic Americano or latte to boost your energy, or a Matcha latte or Taro latte to go with the warm sunshine falling on you through the window.

While the word “brunch” is from English, the concept of brunch has been long established in China with the Cantonese dim sums as an example. If you fancy the shrimp dumplings, Cha Siu buns, and sweet cream buns to begin your day in the traditional Catonese way, then you have to come to Wu Chang Nian. Apart from the dim sums, the restaurant also specializes in Chaoshan casserole porridge.

Shrimp Dumplings |© Sinchen.Lin / Flickr

The Shaanxi cuisine is known for its fully spiced flavors, and breakfast at Xi Shao Ye, the emerging celebrity in Shaanxi cuisine restaurants, is definitely going to spice up your day. Its signature rougamo, with a crispy bun and juicy, tender pork on the inside will blow your mind. You can choose either hot soya milk or spicy soup to go with your rougamo.

From meat porridge to vegetable porridge, salty porridge to sweet porridge, hot porridge to iced porridge, plain white porridge to porridge with various ingredients…there is not one porridge the Jiahe doesn’t have on its menu. It saves you hours of time waiting in front of the kitchen for the porridge to be done, and the price is very reasonable. It also provides dim sums and snacks, including shrimp dumplings and beef pie, to go with your porridge.