How Did This Kunming Ecological Restaurant Earn Its Place in Lonely Planet?
Prominently displayed in the dining hall is a calligraphic inscription reading “Tusheng Shiguan,” written by Yu Jian, a renowned Yunnan poet. A corner of every table bears an illustration explaining why one should use less pesticide and how to use it responsibly.
A few years ago, this ecological restaurant was featured in the travel guide Lonely Planet, and it was voted Best Chinese Restaurant for four consecutive years on GoKunming, the largest English-language website in China’s south-west region.
I. An Ecological Restaurant, and It Tastes Good
While we were standing at the entrance ordering, the proprietress Yang Lifen noticed our two unfamiliar faces. “Almost everyone who comes to eat here is a regular. All our vegetables are home-grown and in season — no pesticides — and the kitchen doesn’t use chicken essence or MSG either.” Having finished what she was busy with, she came over to explain.
“Is your farm in Kunming?”
“In Qujing, over a hundred kilometres from here.” We had barely finished ordering when the proprietress had already tied on her apron and disappeared into the kitchen.
Honestly, it is hard to put into words just how stunning dishes cooked entirely with ecological ingredients can be, but they certainly do smell wonderful — and the simpler the cooking, the more it relies on the ingredients’ own flavour, the more true that is.
During this year’s mushroom season, a friend from Nanning made a special trip to Kunming, and we headed to Tusheng Shiguan again. She, too, is someone particular about food, and the first dish to arrive — stir-fried pork with pickled cabbage — had her raving.
“Yummy, yummy! Your pickled cabbage must be homemade — I can tell. It is completely different from industrial pickling.”
Out of habit I doubted her certainty. “How can you even taste the difference?”
“Of course! Industrially made pickled cabbage has a sharp, industrial quality to its acidity and aroma. When you eat this dish of ours, the acidity is very soft and the flavour beautifully rounded.” Listening to her, I picked up another bite and tasted it.
The chef, done with his tasks, followed the voices out. There were not many guests that day; the only one in the kitchen was the proprietress’s brother. Hearing our friend’s compliments, he suddenly got animated, rummaged through the private dining room for an album, and told us about going to the International Art Festival in Zurich in 2017 with his sister. On that trip they visited local ecological farms and shared Yunnan cuisine with their foreign friends.
The year before the European exchange, Lifen had also hosted Sandor Katz, a self-taught American fermentation enthusiast Sandor Katz. That winter, Katz and his friends came to Tusheng Shiguan, drawn by its reputation, and put on a banquet blending Eastern and Western flavours with fermented foods and ecological ingredients — a perfect close to his “Fermentation Journey” through Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan.
II. “From Farm to Table”
Later, Lifen joined PCD’s Yunnan office. During that time she came into contact with ecological agriculture and farming communities across the region. Gradually, she also convinced her parents back in Qujing, who worked the land, to grow their vegetables ecologically.
After she became pregnant, her parents deliberately planted more ecological vegetables and sent them to Kunming on a regular weekly basis. Any produce they could not finish, they shared with friends. Gradually, more and more friends wanted to eat ecological vegetables, so Lifen’s parents set aside a dedicated plot for growing them and also collected some free-range chickens and eggs from a remote village.
At first, the couple had no idea about opening a restaurant; they simply sold their ecological ingredients from home to friends nearby through group buying. After a few successful rounds, in 2011, to meet the growing demand from more people wanting healthy ingredients, Tusheng Shiguan was officially founded with the pooled investment of their friends.
After the restaurant opened, to ensure that no chemical fertilisers or pesticides were used in growing any of the vegetables, Lifen’s family effectively took on the bulk of the restaurant’s vegetable supply. They swapped plots with neighbours and obtained nearly 10 mu of land.
The vegetable garden itself is roughly three or four mu. It follows the planting patterns familiar to the older generation and maintains a degree of biodiversity. “For example, we never grow only cabbages in the fields — we always plant some garlic chives, spring onions, and the like, and we put fruit trees in the remaining open spaces.”
Lao Cui says that at the most frequent, he went back once a week. A man from Shandong who grew up in the countryside, he finds the land the most comforting presence. “The ecology on the farm is getting better and better — even the bees are competing to build nests there,” Lifen adds.
In addition, they have half a mu of fish pond and a small plot of less than half a mu used for composting. This plot sits on the outer edge of the vegetable garden; a few years ago the Yang family swapped it from a neighbour. It had previously been rice-paddy land, and after they took it over, they filled it with soil to raise it by more than a metre to prevent waterlogging. They have kept planting on it ever since, and after a few years of soil improvement, it has become remarkably fertile.
The farm sends vegetables into the city once or twice a week. Each time, they hitch a ride on the passenger shuttle bus from Qujing to Kunming city, and someone from the restaurant goes to the petrol station next to the bus terminal to collect them. “It’s very cheap — just twenty or thirty yuan a trip.” Lao Cui recalls that in those early years before they had a car, he always had to ride his electric scooter to pick up the vegetables.
III. A Small Shop in a Shifting Landscape
The vibrant nonprofit culture in Kunming provided fertile ground for Tusheng Shiguan’s early growth.
Starting in the early 1980s, Yunnan became one of the first regions in China where international NGOs took root and became active. As the provincial capital, Kunming turned into a hub where major charitable organisations from home and abroad set up offices. A large community of people focused on public issues and sharing similar values gathered in the city, and their presence drew early attention to Tusheng Shiguan. To this day, it remains a regular gathering spot for local organisations working in philanthropy, ecological agriculture, and related fields.
With friends’ support, the restaurant’s reputation gradually spread. By 2017, Tusheng Shiguan hit its peak. Lao Cui recalls that at the busiest times, even the second-floor mezzanine was packed. Staff numbers peaked at over ten, most of them young people from their hometown in Qujing.
The regulars had long since expanded beyond friends to include passers-by and office workers at the nearby creative park. “You can’t run a business on friends alone — they can’t come in and eat every day.” Lao Cui feels that most of their loyal customers today have been built up, bit by bit, through word of mouth.
In recent years the restaurant has grown much quieter; footfall has declined year on year, and this year has been particularly poor. Staff numbers have dropped from twelve at the peak to just three. The kitchen is run by Yang Lifen and her brother; when his wife is away, Lao Cui comes in to work alongside his brother-in-law, and a single senior waitress from Jiangsu handles the front of house.
The staff reduction began back in 2020. The kitchen, too, has changed: they replaced hand-washing with a dishwashing machine, moving away from the environmentally friendly but labour-intensive method of washing dishes with camellia seed powder. “I think you should still make use of technology when it is available,” Lao Cui muses.
Lao Cui’s role also shifted from running the front of house to the kitchen; he started by learning to prep ingredients and gradually picked up cooking skills. With four years of kitchen experience under his belt, he has only now begun to look back and reflect on all the problems they encountered in earlier management. “We had never run a food business before — we took a lot of wrong turns.”
The first was blindly adding headcount. Lao Cui feels that even during the best years of business, ten people were never truly needed.
The young workers hired from their hometown in Qujing had high turnover, and the chefs they employed were difficult to manage. The peak years of business also saw the most complaints; the dishes were far from consistent. The chefs handled ingredients poorly, which often led to waste and unnecessary losses — for instance, the organic peanut oil they used for cooking.
This kind of oil is on the pricey side, with a wholesale cost of close to 200 yuan per bucket. Every time the staff poured a bucket down to the last drop, they would simply toss it out. “But if you drain it properly, you can still catch quite a bit of oil. We have said this many times, and they still cannot get it right.”
The somewhat remote location also affected business to a degree.
In the early days, the couple had looked at various sites, only to rule them all out for one reason or another. Then they heard a Western restaurant was up for transfer at a reasonable price, and they signed on. “At the time we were full of ambition, thinking that a fine fragrance need not fear a narrow lane — we never worried this location would hurt business.” Now, under the pressure of the broader environment, the disadvantage of this site has been gradually showing itself.
Looking ahead, Tusheng Shiguan faces greater uncertainty, but it continues to persevere.
In April this year, Lao Cui ran into a regular who had been coming in to eat since middle school. She is now studying at a university away from home, and whenever she comes back for a holiday, she still makes a point of finding her way here. “I believe in people’s palates. If you grew up eating clean, honest ingredients at home, you will still crave that natural taste once you go out into the world. I have met so many customers who really care about this.”
Fourteen years into its life, much has changed at this ecological restaurant, but their Slow Food philosophy has not — “Take your time eating, take your time waiting. At home we raise slowly, we grow slowly — everything follows the rhythms of nature.”
These are the words of Yang Lifen’s father, and they have them posted at the restaurant’s entrance all along.
About Tusheng Shiguan
Unless otherwise noted, all images in this article
are supplied by the author and Tusheng Shiguan.
Editor: Zean