Beijing Boyce

My five years in Taipei included more than a few nights out, yet none in Capone’s, a bar / restaurant that has graced that city since the mid-1990s and was a short walk from my office. I’ve got a better record in Beijing, having twice visited our Capone’s with M-Dawg.

The first visit was during the hard launch in early January and we missed the free drinks by a few minutes. (I only know because the staff told me, which gets them high marks for honesty, but low ones in the “what customers don’t know won’t hurt them” department.) Some notes:

- Capone’s is in the new shopping complex called The Place, easily identifiable by that huge monitor out front.
- The Place is a mall, and you have to pass mall shopper-like through its mall-like lobby and hope not to pick up a mall-ish vibe before reaching Capone’s, on the fourth floor.
- This sizeable L-shaped venue has a lot going on in terms of design: a candy apple-colored backdrop behind the bar, a black and white chessboard-style floor, giant hat box-like structures descending from the ceiling, tea-green walls near the door, red-lit private booths, and so on. I needed a drink after taking it all in.
- The staff is attentive, efficient and friendly (though sometimes patrons just want a drink, not a speaking partner).
- The Gin Tonic was too strong, the Manhattan poorly mixed. In terms of the latter, it was good that the bartender asked if I wanted Bourbon or Whiskey and, when I picked the latter, Jim Beam or Jack Daniels. The drinks should be easy enough to fix.
- The wine menu is extensive, with some 45 options by the glass, including Grappa and Champagne. The wine is pricey, though, with Santa Rita at 70 kuai per glass (!).
- The singer was excellent, especially when he crooned Georgia on My Mind, though he was partially accompanied by recorded music.

While Capone’s is an upscale restaurant, I could see it as a port of call for drinks. Enjoying a glass of wine, chatting with friends, listening to the singer - there’s some potential here. One idea would be to uncork a dozen different wines, stick them on the bar, and let people sample them by the glass at a decent price, somewhat along the lines of Senses in Shanghai. That’s what I suggested one week later during…

… my second visit, as Harry Chen, principal owner and co-founder of Taipei’s Capone’s, invited me to dinner. I normally avoid these invitations because I feel guilty criticizing a place after being treated and because it gives the bar or restaurant a chance to put on its best face and provide an experience not received by the average customer. Since Harry said he didn’t care what I wrote, the focus would be on food (which I don’t cover), and I already had my notes from visit one, M-Dawg and I went - but not before I spent some 20 minutes outside staring at The Place’s 12,5000-square-meter elevated digital screen (see Look Skyward Ayi: The Mother of Monitors).

How was the second visit? The staff was attentive, the food tasty, the dessert interesting (chocolate and hot peppers), the three wines pleasant. And I still think that someone in Beijing needs to uncork 12 different bottles of wine, stick them on a bartop, throw dog tags around their necks with a (reasonble) price per glass on them, and then let patrons explore. While George on My Mind plays in the background?