Cut from a Different Cloth: Fairmont Hotel Beijing's The Cut

When Fairmont Hotel Beijing dining outlet The Cut’s former chef Andreas Block departed for Kuala Lumpur in 2014, he left pretty big shoes (and aprons and chef’s whites) to fill. Block was well known around Beijing not only for his hearty food at The Cut, but also for his collaborations with other local F&B brands like Great Leap Brewing. However, young, ambitious new chef de cuisine Christoph Zoller doesn’t seem to be fazed by the pressure. Fresh off a stint at Swissôtel Kunshan, Zoller is ready to bring a new take to the menu at The Cut.

Zoller originally hails from Switzerland, but he won’t be adding too many Swiss dishes to the menu (with the exception of rösti potatoes). Instead, he is focusing on consolidating the existing menu while adding his own twists – a new risotto dish, a weekly changing lunch menu – here and there. A current promotion featuring China-grown white asparagus suggests a willingness to incorporate more seasonal ingredients.

For all that, few people are visiting The Cut just for the risotto. The steak (namely, Australian wagyu beef) is still the main event. Not that the accompaniments are an afterthought. Take, for example, their signature fries. Thick-cut potatoes are first blanched, before being fried not once, but twice in a light beer-based tempura batter and sprinkled with paprika salt. With Zoller at the helm, The Cut is set to maintain its place among Beijing’s favorite steakhouses.

Try The Cut’s “Friends and Family” menu, available Monday-Wednesday. Priced at RMB 1,200 for four people, the menu features soup, salad, a surf and turf main course (1kg of oyster blade steak and eight prawns) and a dessert, all presented family-style. Trust us when we say you will not be going home hungry after this.

The Cut
Daily 11.30am-2pm, 6-11pm. Fairmont Hotel Beijing, 8 Yong’an Dongli, Jianguomen Waidajie, Chaoyang District (8511 7777)
刃扒房：朝阳区建国门外大街永安东里8号华彬费尔蒙酒店
450m southeast of Yonganli (Line 1)

Photo: Uni