Beijing’s 10 Best Bathrooms

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the toilet papers

Bathrooms—especially bathrooms in China—tend to either get ignored or be the stuff of jokes or expat horror stories. But that’s unfair. Our city has some pretty amazing washrooms that venues have put creativity and effort into designing and maintaining. Here we celebrate Beijing’s 10 very best.

The English Tearoom

Hands down, this has got to be Beijing’s cutest bathroom. It’s located in one of the most family-friendly places around, out in Shunyi, and the bathroom is especially set up for children. Next to the regular toilet, there is a tiny little child-sized toilet that we find absolutely adorable. And hung on the walls, at what would be eye-level if you were 5 and on the mini toilet, are framed illustrations and excerpts from British children’s classics like Beatrix Potter books and Winnie the Pooh. The family-friendly bathroom also has very well stocked changing facilities.  

Parkview Green

Shopping mall Parkview Green's best bathroom is down a hallway near the entrance of Alfie’s. It’s a private bathroom with a toilet and a sink for one person. The toilet is the fun Japanese kind that washes and dries and has a heated seat. But that’s not even the best part. You also have a choice of at least four colors of toilet paper. Dozens (we counted at least 40!) of rolls of green, red, yellow and blue are all for the taking. The soap also leaves your hands smelling really nice. Not all Parkview Green bathrooms are as amazing as that one, but they do all boast high-tech toilets. Now if only SOHO would follow suit.

Capital M

One of Beijing’s most iconic restaurants, Capital M is known for its beautiful terraces that look out over Tian’anmen Square. But did you know that both the men’s and women’s bathrooms have their own terraces? The bathrooms themselves are nicely done, though a fairly standard collection of stalls and sinks. To the back, though, you’ll find glass doors that lead out onto a small, private, leafy balcony. It’s especially a boon for secret smokers, but also provides a pleasant little escape for anyone who needs a bit of breathing room between courses.

LAN Club

Much fuss has been made over LAN ’s love-it-or-hate-it décor by famous interior designer Philippe Starck, complete with gold-framed paintings on the ceilings and display cases filled with Mao-era ceramics and other collections. But our favorite part of this imposing club and restaurant are the enormous private bathrooms. They even have armchairs in them, in case you want to bring a companion … or maybe have a rest after using the toilet? The rooms are covered on all sides with mirrors, and the glittering, silver-encrusted sink, with its faucet that looks like a duck’s head, has always amused us considerably.

Huang Ting

We don’t particularly like having to leave a venue to use the bathroom, be this a stroll down the hutong, waiting in line in a shopping mall or wandering around a hotel lobby looking for the facilities. Huang Ting at the Peninsula is one of the few hotel restaurants that not only has its own bathroom but has put significant effort into uniting the décor of the dining room with that of the toilets.

The excellent Cantonese restaurant has a traditional teahouse look and lots of dark wooden furniture. Inside the bathrooms look the same—the doors on the spacious stalls are dark wood, and the sinks are beautifully done with antique-looking wood and porcelain bowls straight out of the Qing dynasty. Plush cloth towels and pleasant attendants complete the experience.

Grace Hotel

It stands to reason that a boutique art hotel on the fringes of 798 would have excellent design. We’re glad to say this extends to the bathrooms as well, which we’ve used while enjoying Yi House Bistro. They’re very spacious, and covered with checkered black and white rectangular panels. All of the bathroom accessories are tastefully matched in color and style, with white ceramic taps, an elegant black-and-white soap dispenser, fragrance diffuser, real cloth towels and a contrasting paper napkin dispenser in bright green. Near the sink (and away from the stalls), you’ll also find large windows, which offer views outside and provide natural lighting for daytime makeup touch-ups.

ROOMbeijing

Far from being an afterthought, the bathrooms at ROOMbeijing are an essential part of the restaurant’s fun, bright, unique décor. Finding said bathrooms is just another part of the restaurant’s experience; they’re hidden behind secret doors that look like bookshelves near the entranceway—this might lead to awkward situations for anyone without the time to go searching for the lavatory, but thankfully there is always staff on hand to point the way.

Get the right bookshelf door to the women’s bathroom, and you’ll emerge into a powder room, which appears to be a library. Then push on one of those walls, and you’ll find the toilets. The men’s bathroom only has one secret door to get past, but it also has a crazy artistic wall of urinals in various colors and designs.

Chocolate

Infamous Russian nightclub Chocolate was tuhao (a trendy new Chinese slang term for ostentatiously wealthy) years before tuhao was even a thing. Everything about these bathrooms is gold, from gold urinals and squat toilets to gold sinks to gold bathroom accessories. There are black velvet armchairs (trimmed in gold, of course), plus snakeskin-textured floors and walls. Tacky? Yes, but you have to admit it’s pretty amazing, and goes along with the rest of Chocolate’s celebrated over-the-top décor and entertainment. 

Niajo

Spanish restaurant Niajo has gotten better and better over the years, and this even goes for its bathrooms. When it first opened in 1509, it stood out for just having a toilet, since most of the eateries in Nali Patio at that point required a dash outside to the less-than-stellar public facilities.

But when Niajo renovated in 2012, the bathrooms became our favorite part of the restaurant’s décor. Where the dining area became darker, with black tables and exposed brick, the bathrooms became exquisitely colorful, covered in tile mosaics by designer and artist Fito Rodríguez, cofounder of RiceUp Studio. The design is inspired by the mosaics of Barcelona’s famous architect Gaudi.

Each piece of tile had to be broken by hand, then assembled together based on which pieces fit best. This long and tedious process was personally undertaken by Rodriguez, with help from the restaurant's marketing manager. The results are gorgeous, moving from cool to warm, Mediterranean colors. We especially love the reds and oranges that radiate around the sink.

Tim's Texas BBQ

“It’s a good place for a chuckle,” says owner Tim Hilbert about his bathrooms. He plasters the walls inside with jokes, stories and pictures, the majority of which are crude but funny—perfect bathroom humor.

Like City Weekend, the walls of Tim’s bathrooms are reader-powered: Hilbert regularly receives the jokes from a number of regular patrons, then filters out anything racial or religious, and decides if the humor is better suited to the men’s side, the women’s side or the common area by the sink. The jokes also get refreshed about once a month, so regulars have new reading material.

Here’s one of Hilbert’s personal favorites: Below a picture of an elderly couple on a park bench, a man says, “Whenever I get mad at you, you never get upset. How do you manage to control your temper?” “That’s easy. I go clean the toilet,” replies the woman. “How does that help?” he asks. “I use your toothbrush.”