Int'l media spotlight Hangzhou through Enrico Bartolini's new restaurant

Recently, some foreign media turned their eyes on Hangzhou. On March 6, Italian Michelin-leading chef Enrico Bartolini opened a new restaurant in the riverside Qianjiang Century City, Hangzhou. Through this opening, foreign media once again focused on the city's fine dining atmosphere and its growing consumer appeal in recent years.

In English media reports, Hangzhou is no longer seen only as a traditional scenic city. In December last year, the South China Morning Post, in a report about Hangzhou, described the city as “a gourmand mecca” and said it is building “a growing reputation as a gastronomy hotspot”. The report also mentioned that since the Michelin Guide entered Hangzhou in 2023, the city's fine dining scene has become much more active. This kind of wording places Hangzhou into a more contemporary urban lifestyle picture. What foreign media are noticing now is not only West Lake and Longjing tea, but also the changes in dining, aesthetics and consumption scenes.

According to official information, the restaurant, named Enrico Bartolini Hangzhou, opened on March 6. The space was designed by HDC(Hummingbird Design Company). The overall design uses dark wood tones, and in the courtyard there are also two olive trees specially brought from the Mediterranean area of Italy.

Inside Milan's MUDEC Museum, ENRICO BARTOLINI is a three-Michelin-star restaurant. By 2025, restaurants under chef Enrico Bartolini had won a total of 14 Michelin stars, ranking first in Italy by total number of Michelin stars, making him the country's top Michelin chef.

At Enrico Bartolini Hangzhou, besides the à la carte menu, the restaurant also offers two tasting menus. One is “Omaggio a Mudec”, inspired by the three-Michelin-starred restaurant at MUDEC, Milano. The other one, “La Via della Seta”, or “The Silk Road”, was designed by executive chef Nicholas Reina for the Hangzhou market, trying to combine traditional Italian cooking methods with high-quality local Chinese ingredients. According to the Italian food news and review platform Dissapore, this menu takes inspiration from Marco Polo's journey to the East, using local premium ingredients and preparing them with Italian culinary techniques and ideas. In this menu, the dessert part also includes local elements such as Shaoxing yellow wine flavored ice cream, while the wine list has around 500 labels, with pairings offered by the sommelier team.

When reporting on this new restaurant, Italian culinary trade media Italian Gourmet did not first talk about the chef's résumé, but instead mentioned Hangzhou's location and city conditions. The article wrote that the restaurant stands by the Qiantang River, in “one of the richest and most tourist-friendly areas in the country”. In this kind of expression, Hangzhou is not simply shown as a background for the restaurant. It is presented as a city already having the spending power, tourism attraction and the ability to host international projects.

It is exactly under this context that Enrico Bartolini Hangzhou has been seen by foreign media as a new case worth watching. When the South China Morning Post looked at Hangzhou's high-end dining ecology, it had already placed the city among China's emerging refined dining destinations. The recent Italian reports, to some degree, continue this judgment. According to Italian Gourmet, the Hangzhou project is Bartolini's fourth international project after Dubai, Hong Kong and Bali. Italian food media Dissapore, meanwhile, discussed it under the background that Michelin Guide Hangzhou will be released this May, and directly used in the headline the question: “la stella Michelin è in arrivo?(Is a Michelin star on the way?)”

When putting these details into foreign media's observation of Hangzhou, the place of this restaurant in the city becomes easier to understand. What it shows is not only the landing of Italian fine dining in Hangzhou, but also an effort to build connection with Hangzhou, local ingredients and local dining context. Italian Gourmet quoted Bartolini as saying that Nicholas Reina will represent in China the brand's “style” and its “idea of cuisine and hospitality”.

Beyond West Lake, the Grand Canal and Longjing tea, Hangzhou is entering international media vision with a richer urban experience. The opening of Enrico Bartolini Hangzhou is only one side of this process.

Source: Enrico Bartolini Hangzhou