At Xiang Home (香楼), a late-summer menu turns local ingredients, childhood flavours and the mist-softened landscape of Hangzhou into a quietly expressive portrait of Jiangnan.
Hangzhou is the city where I grew up. After rain, West Lake appears to be made entirely of green. Raindrops gather into ripples across the water, spreading like an endless field of lotus leaves. The air is, as always, humid and faintly sticky. Yet that familiar discomfort reassures me.
Recently, I followed Professor Chen Li – a psychologist and consultant to the Chinese food documentaries A Bite of China and Once Upon a Bite – to Xiang Home for the late summer menu he conceived with the restaurant. The menu was not dazzling in the obvious sense. Its appeal was quieter – each course revealed respect for the ingredient, an understanding of the season and a close attention to the flavours of place. It reminded me of Hangzhou whose beauty is always on the low-key side, not overwhelming but absorbed into daily life as naturally as air.
A Menu Written in the Season
Warm Cuttlefish with Preserved Mustard Greens and Knotweed 雪里蕻温拌目鱼
Preserved mustard greens are immediately familiar to anyone who grew up in Jiangnan, but the addition of knotweed shifted the dish in an unexpected direction. Its light, aromatic acidity lifted the deep savour and umami of the pickle. The cuttlefish was crisp yet tender, with just enough bounce, and had absorbed the seasoning beautifully.
A Duo of Sichuan “Diving Pickles” 跳水双拼
Radish and celtuce had been cut into tiny accordion-like ridges, lending them the graphic precision of modern architecture. After 24 hours in the pickle (thus the name “Diving Pickles”), a clear acidity opened gradually into a measured tingle of heat. The radish had lost both its raw sharpness and earthy edge; blackcurrant added a final flash of floral, berry-like sweetness.
Aged White Jade Snails with House-Made Shrimp Paste 熟成白玉蜗牛配自制虾酱
For this modern Chinese dish, Professor Chen chose snails raised in Nanhu District, Jiaxing, valuing their fat content and texture over that of French snails. Three days of ageing tightened the flesh, leaving it pleasantly chewy rather than dry. As I ate, the concentrated aroma of the shrimp paste unfolded slowly, followed by a nearly imperceptible sweetness from the aged snail. It was an unusual pairing – and a persuasive assertion of a local ingredient too often treated as secondary.
Crisp Tofu-Skin Rolls with Foie Gras and Yuanhong Rice Wine 元红粉肝响铃
Fried tofu-skin rolls (响铃) are inseparable from Hangzhou family gatherings, especially during the New Year. Here, Xiang Home gave the familiar snack a distinctly French inflection. The organic acids in Shaoxing Yuanhong rice wine met the richness of foie gras with remarkable harmony: first came the wine, then a faint, tranquil floral note, while the liver dissolved slowly across the palate. The brittle shell of tofu skin was an ideal counterpoint to the foie gras within.
The Brief Season of June Yellow Crab
Just before their final moult, young hairy crabs are known as liuyuehuang (六月黄), or “June Yellow”. Their shells are thin, their flesh tender, and their sweetness carries the particular tension of something not yet fully mature. Xiang Home explored that fleeting ingredient in three very different ways.
June Yellow Crab Tofu 六月黄豆腐
This was a dish of extraordinary labour. The crab was simmered, crushed, filtered and set into a quivering block in which no visible crab remained. It looked almost like luncheon meat, but the texture was springy and clean, with none of the crab’s fishiness and only a subtle sweetness. More moving still was the broth: visually lucid, yet intensely expressive, releasing pure savour and sweetness while remaining light, polished and deeply comforting.
Steamed Pork Patty with June Yellow Crab 六月三黄肉饼
The crabmeat and roe were folded into an otherwise straightforward steamed pork patty. The sweetness of the meat and richness of the roe sank into the pork, while oil-preserved termite mushrooms added the dense, rounded perfume of the mountains. Sea, land and forest met in a single dish. Freshly grated Jun ginger from Sichuan was the most distinctive touch: more fragrant but far less hot than ordinary ginger, with a trace of sweetness and cooling freshness that gave the patty greater dimension.
Salt-Baked Young Female Crab with Three Aromatics 三香黄油盐焗奄仔蟹
A salt mixture scented with ginger and two types of spring onion was used to bake the young female crab. The method sealed in its juices, leaving the flesh tender rather than dry. There was little ornamentation here: simple seasonings existed only to amplify the crab’s own flavour.
From Lake and Mountain
Crisp Soft-Shell Turtle with Shrimp and Jinhua Ham 锅贴甲鱼
Soft-shell turtle is normally an ingredient I avoid, but this dish carried none of the muddy aroma I associate with it, so I ventured in. The gelatinous skirt of farmed turtle had been filled with springy shrimp paste; at the other end, Jinhua ham was cooked down into a sweet-savoury glaze. The exterior shattered crisply, while the centre retained the turtle’s distinctive collagen-rich texture and the bounce of shrimp, followed by the fat and savour of ham and a precisely judged sweetness.
It brought to mind the turtle aspic from LINGLONG’s previous seasonal menu. Both dishes made me reconsider an ingredient I had long dismissed. Perhaps my rule is simply this: I may not eat turtle, but I can eat turtle that does not taste like turtle.
Crispy Chicken with Fragrant Mountain Pepper Oil 香椒脆皮油淋鸡
Beautiful. A mountain pepper native to Anhui perfumed the chicken oil with a gentle numbing quality and the brightness of pomelo or citrus. More dried pepper was ground over the dish at the table, turning what began as a humble home-style preparation into something layered and vivid. The chicken itself was close to perfect: brittle skin, succulent meat and the kind of appetite-inducing flavour that makes one piece inevitably follow another.
M5 Wagyu with Young Ginger and Fermented Laba Beans 仔姜腊八豆炒和牛
The dominant impression was the luxuriant fat and subtly milky flavour of the M5 wagyu, followed by an emphatic surge of young ginger. The salty, fermented character of the laba beans was much less apparent. For me, the ginger ran slightly too strong, although perhaps that force was needed to counter the richness of the beef.
A Sweet Ending
Glutinous Rice Cakes with Candied Ham 条头糕火腿酥
I loved these. It had been a long time since I encountered glutinous rice cake so perfectly glossy: soft and yielding, but never adhesive on the teeth. The filling combined Yunnan Nuodeng ham and Jinhua ham with sugar and honey, producing something rich, savoury and sweet. If you paid attention, the two hams revealed distinct flavours of their own. The quietness of the rice exterior and the saline depth of the filling created a wonderful contrast. At this one-bite size, I felt I could have finished an entire plate.
Rose Myrtle Ice Cream with Crumble 桃金娘冰淇淋&酥粒
Rose myrtle is a wild fruit commonly found in the hills of southern China, with a delicate berry sweetness. The ice cream was smooth and restrained; crisp crumble underneath brought balance and satisfaction. It was a fresh, gently sweet ending to Xiang Home’s late-summer menu.
A Location that Carries the Weight of History
Xiang Home occupies Villa No. 4 at the Shangri-La on Beishan Road. The building has lived several lives: from the Dielai Hotel of the 1930s, to the Hangzhou Hotel of the 1950s and 1960s, and eventually to the Shangri-La in the 1980s. Its walls have witnessed more than half a century of the city’s change.
Inside, broad planes of natural limestone establish a warm, timeworn foundation. Timber and leather furniture meet walls of contrasting textures, as if each material were a footnote to a different chapter in the villa’s history. Earth tones run throughout, allowing the atmosphere of Beishan Road and West Lake to wash into the room like ink spreading across paper.
Xiang Home’s refinement never appears to strain for effect. That, too, feels deeply characteristic of Hangzhou.
Read the original Chinese story
香楼深夏：给江南的情书.
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LINGLONG Shanghai: Roots and Reinvention
