GUANGZHOU, Dec 19 — No trip to Guangzhou is complete without a meal at one of the city’s most iconic restaurants: the aptly named, Guangzhou Restaurant (广州酒家).

Founded in 1935, the restaurant’s original location at the crossroads of Wenchang Road and the famed Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street was under renovation when we visited.

Thankfully, this is China, where any semi-successful restaurant will have more locations than you can count on your fingers.

We opted for lunch at the Binjiang West Road location, which has separate floors for dim sum and à la carte dining.

The speciality here is classic Cantonese cuisine, with highlights ranging from braised goose webs to their signature steamed Mandarin fish.

The rich tradition of Cantonese barbecue, or siu mei, is another standout. Char siu, siu yuk, and siu ngo (roast goose) all make an appearance, with the roast goose stealing the show.

A single portion (¥99) came with crisp skin that shattered in our mouths and rich, gamey meat that filled our gullets with decadent goose fat.

As delightful as the roast goose was, the restaurant’s true signature is the "Wenchang” chicken (¥148 for half a bird).

Created in the restaurant’s early days, the dish is almost as old as the restaurant itself, named not for the chicken breed or the dish from Wenchang city, Hainan (the supposed forebear of Hainanese chicken rice), but for the restaurant’s original home on Wenchang Road.

The dish takes classic Cantonese white-cut chicken (baak cit gai), deboned and sliced, and pairs each piece with a sliver of Chinese ham and chicken liver.

It’s served warm in a light sauce made from its poaching liquid, adding richness and sheen.

While the chicken wasn’t the silkiest we’ve ever had, the real star was the interplay of textures: the soft, creamy liver, the streaky ham, and the firm, plump chicken.

The poached skin added a jelly-like cherry on top, with the ham providing the main savoury punch.

It’s the kind of old-school innovation that defines traditional banquet-style fare – precisely the sort of dish you’d expect to represent an institution like Guangzhou Restaurant.

Elsewhere, some restaurants (and chefs) are redefining Cantonese cuisine by crafting innovative dishes that still honour its culinary traditions.

When the Michelin Guide debuted in Guangzhou in 2018, Jiang by Chef Fei – real name Huang Jing Hui – at the Mandarin Oriental earned a star.

It became the first restaurant in the city to gain a second star the following year, a distinction it has retained ever since.

Chef Fei is something of a rarity: a culinary celebrity in a country where chefs, despite the global prestige of Chinese cuisine, are not often under the spotlight.

The most talked-about, must-try dish? Roasted Wenchang chicken with flaxseeds. This dish uses the actual breed of chicken from Hainan, a small, free-range variety fed on coconut and peanut bran.

Prized for its tender meat, sourcing this chicken for what is essentially a simple roast dish mirrors the way chefs source specific cuts of beef for steak.

Our half-portion (¥218) featured incredibly juicy, succulent flesh and crispy skin, accompanied by a slightly sour chilli sauce reminiscent of those at chicken rice stalls here.

Exquisite as it was, it didn’t quite capture my imagination the way a far less impressive-sounding dish did.

From the chef’s recommendations, it was the wok-fried eggplant with fermented soybean sauce and basil (¥138) that stole the spotlight.

A more accurate description? Simply genius. The soft, almost smushy eggplant wore a lively green hue and was laced with all the elements of a classic Genovese pesto: finely diced basil, whole cloves of garlic, and tiny jewels of pine nuts.

The fermented soybean sauce acted as both cheese and olive oil, providing salinity and cohesion. The result was a clever pastiche to pesto without simply being eggplant stir-fried in pesto.

Even the steamed Hele crab with minced pork (¥498), a crab lover’s (and big spender’s) dream, couldn’t top the eggplant.

This dish pairs the rich, oily roe and meat of prized Hele crab with a humble Cantonese pork patty, requiring immense skill to steam both to perfection without overcooking.

Yet, the creativity and execution behind the eggplant dish won me over. That is how you make a vegetable dish the star.

Such creativity is also on full display at Bingsheng Mansion (炳胜公馆), the upscale branch of the Bingsheng group, which boasts 11 locations in Guangzhou and six in Shenzhen.

The flagship restaurant, located on Xiancun Road in Zhujiang New Town, has held a Michelin star since 2018.

While the extensive menu is brimming with inventive dishes, the two I’ll highlight are also available at Bingsheng Taste (炳胜品味) locations, of which there are four in Guangzhou.

The restaurant is known for its signature black char siu, so we ordered it in a siu mei platter with black char siu, crispy char siu, and roasted goose in Bingsheng style (¥288).

This style of dark, caramelised char siu, rich and fatty, isn’t common in Guangzhou or Hong Kong, but for most Malaysians, it’s our bread and butter.

It was very much like eating at Char Siew Yoong, just in a much pricier setting. But the real revelation was the crispy char siu.

These cubes of pure fat were encrusted in breadcrumbs and sugar, making them sweet, rich, and utterly indulgent. It’s nothing like any siu mei you’ve had before.

Surprisingly, the most-talked-about dish at the Bingsheng group isn’t actually a dish, but a dessert. Their signature polo bao (¥38) is said to be unmissable – and it absolutely is.

These buns are gargantuan, light, and pillowy, and you’re given gloves to tear into them, revealing a sweet pineapple jam inside.

It’s a fun play on the beloved bun’s name, as "polo” refers to the pineapple-like appearance of the butter and sugar crust, despite containing no actual pineapple.

This wonderful treat is the perfect answer to the perennial question: "Why doesn’t polo bao have any pineapple?” At Bingsheng, it does. And it’s delightful.

Guangzhou Restaurant (Binjiang West Branch)

广州酒家(滨江西店)

No. 20, Binjiang West Road,

Haizhu District, Guangzhou City,

Guangdong Province (opposite the White Swan Hotel)

广东省-广州市-海珠区-滨江西路20号（白天鹅宾馆对岸）

Open daily, 8am-2.30pm, 5.30-9.30pm

Tel: (020) 8442 8999

Jiang by Chef Fei

江宴会厅

3rd Floor, Mandarin Oriental Hotel,

No. 389 Tianhe Road, Tianhe District,

Guangzhou, Guangdong

广东省-广州市-天河区-天河路389号文华东方酒店三楼

Open daily, 10am-10pm

Tel: (020) 3808 8885

Bingsheng Mansion (Zhujiang New Town)

炳胜公馆(珠江新城店)

5th Floor, No. 2, Xiancun Road,

Zhujiang New Town, Tianhe District,

Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

广东省-广州市-天河区-珠江新城冼村路2号5楼

Open daily, 11am-3pm, 5-9pm. Open from 10am on weekends.

Tel: (020) 3803 5000

* This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.

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*** Follow Ethan Lau on Instagram @eatenlau for more musings on food and mildly self-deprecating attempts at humour.