The two most famous restaurants that serve Beijing Roast Duck are Bianyifang Roast Duck Restaurant and Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant. Both have a history of over one hundred years. They represent two different schools of roasting duck.

Bianyifang, founded in 1855, makes use of a closed oven and straw as the fuel, Using this method ensures that flames will not go directly onto the duck. Before being put into the oven, a duck is filled with specially-made soup to make it possible to roast the duck outside and boil it inside at the same time.

Quanjude is the better known one, founded in 1864, uses an oven without a door. A kind of dressing is spread all over the duck and the duck is hung in the oven over the flame coming directly from the burning of the fruit-tree wood. The cooking time is forty minutes.

When roasted and dried, the duck will look brilliant dark red, shining with oil and with crisp skin and tender meat. Few people could resist the temptation of it.

The serving of roast duck is also an art. First, the chef will show you the whole duck, then; he will slice it into about one hundred and twenty pieces with both skin and meat for each. Usually the duck is served together with special pancakes, hollowed sesame bun, green onions and sweet sauce. Dinners can wrap duck slices, onion, and sauce in a pancake or a sesame bun with their bare hands. Sometimes people like include mashed garlic and cucumber or carrot strips as well. Some young women like to dip slices into white sugar directly. Other parts of the duck will be served as either cold dishes with its livers, wings, stomach, webs and eggs, or hot dishes with its heart, tongue and kidneys. The bones can even be decocted together with Chinese watermelon and cabbage.

The Quanjude Restaurant near Hepingmen Gate (Peace Gate), the largest roast duck restaurant in Beijing if not in the world, opened for business in 1979. It has a floor space of 15,000 square meters divided into 41 dining halls, including one, which can serve 600 customers simultaneously. The dining halls reserved for overseas guests can accommodate a total of 2,000 diners, and include a hall where all-duck banquets in which all the dishes are made from parts of the duck can be served to 600 people. Filled to capacity, Quanjude Restaurant can serve as many as 5,000 meals a day.