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China Live is one of the biggest openings to hit San Francisco in quite some time. It’s an incredibly ambitious, multi-faceted, massive project that can most easily be described as a Chinese version of Eataly, Mario Batali’s paean to Italian food in NYC.

Many food halls have been compared to Eataly, the wildly successful Italian grocery, retail shop, and multi-restaurant space wrapped into one, which launched its flagship in New York City and has since spread to five locations nationwide (not to mention another 25 worldwide). But China Live is SF’s most apt comparison yet: When it opens on Wednesday, March 1, it will have a retail section with educational components, tea and pastry cafe, flower mart, full bar, and fine-dining restaurant, with more to come on upper floors— all filtered through the lens of China and Taiwan.

It’s the brainchild of veteran restaurateur George Chen (Betelnut) and his partner Cindy Wong-Chen, and it’s been three years in the making. Now — $20 million, 90 employees, and 30,000-square-feet later — it arrives next week, with pantry items and tableware never before seen in the United States, all the Chinese food you could possibly crave, and a stunningly gorgeous interior from design firm AvroKo (Single Thread, Ninebark).

“We need to come out with a bang. I’m relieved to open, but with a project this size pieces can go wrong, so there’s a nervousness of course,” Chen told Eater SF. “But I think we’ll be successful. People will find authenticity and creativity within what we do.”

To prepare yourself for the opening, which has been highly-anticipated amongst Chinatown locals as well as those farther afield, here is exactly what to expect and how to navigate this glossy newcomer.

Oolong Café

The first thing you’ll see upon entering China Live is the flower mart. Flowers, sold by the bunch up front and decorating the entire space, are from Frank Lo. Continue in, and you’ll walk directly into Oolong Café, the grab-and-go tea and pastry space.

Tea will be sold for $2.50 to $5 a cup, which is significantly less expensive than other cups around town, a result of Chen sourcing the tea himself straight from Taiwanese farmers. Tea includes oolong from a 1,700-meter-elevation farm in Taiwan; green sourced from Westlake and pan-roasted in Hangzhou, China; oxidized red tea grown in the Fujian province of southeastern China; Chen’s custom eight treasure blend; and more. Food includes jianbing (Chinese egg crepes, a YoNut (a take on the Cronut using fried cruller dough), and more.

For those sitting down in one of the 25 seats in this area, there are custom-made-for-China-Live glassware and teapots. It’s a more playful design here than the restaurant and retail space, featuring hand-painted cobalt blue and white tiles. Scenes on the tiles include popular 14th century China designs, plus the added twist of Bay Area landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge and TransAmerica building.

Market Restaurant

The majority of the first floor is taken up by the Market Restaurant, a 120-seat, full-service restaurant with a daily-changing menu of dim sum, Chinese barbecue, salads, noodles, rice bowls, seafood, soup, stir fry, dessert, and more.

“For a Chinese restaurant to have a menu changing daily based on the market is newer [to diners].”

“It’s not same dishes you order across the street, city, state, country. In the last month, white turnips, lotus root, and mountain potato have hit the markets, and it’s inspiring to see older Chinese women take their ingredients that seriously — so why can’t we?” Chen said. “Chinese cooking is all about that. We’re trying to change perceptions that it’s not fresh. So that’s new, and there’s some nervousness because when you do something new, you can fail.”

Chen will be in the kitchen everyday, working with director of culinary operations Joey Altman and chef de cuisine Robin Lin, who moved here from Taiwan for this project.

There are four counters surrounding the walk-in-only seating space, each dedicated to a different style of cooking: barbecue and grilling, wok and seafood, dumpling and dim sum, and dessert. (While the savory food will only be available at tables, the dessert can also be ordered on its own and taken away.) The rest happens in the back kitchen.

As in the rest of the space, Chen spared no expense on kitchen design. Custom cookware was shipped in from China, including a Wa Guan Tang, or a traditional giant green ceramic slow cooker cauldron, used for curing meats and boiling soups, as well as custom-made dumpling pans.

Similarly, custom design details go into every aspect, with glowing copper counters, tables and chairs made from reclaimed Northern Chinese elm, and a ceiling that displays the Chinese characters for what Chen calls the nine essential flavors of Chinese cuisine, which includes smoky, sour, salty, spicy, and more.

Chen conservatively anticipates check averages to be $31 per person, saying you could have a full meal and a beer for $20 to $30, which is in line with the neighborhood.

Here’s a rundown of some of the dishes to expect:

Xiao long bao (soup dumpling)

Sheng jian bao (pan fried pork dumplings)

Taiwan red braised beef & tendon noodle soup

Sichuan “working hands” wonton in mala chili broth

House roasted char siu baked bao

“Five flower” pork belly gua bao lotus buns

Yangtze river grass-wrapped fried cod

“Chicken of the Sea” Singapore wings in pepper-salt

Minced five-spice beef cheeks in lettuce cups

Lotus root & eggplant “biscuits” with red bean sauce

Mapo tofu (meat or vegetarian), prepared tableside

Three cup Taiwanese chicken with basil and seasonal citrus confit

Chrysanthemum salad with starfruit & tea vinaigrette

Stone oven roasted duck, Peking style with seasonal fruit glazes

Macanese egg custard tart, crème brûlée style

Soy milk panna cotta with cassia honey and puffed barley

Date & chocolate ganache with cocao nibs and soya tuile

Sesame soft serve with mango shaved ice and toppings

Bar Central

The bar is adjacent to the restaurant space, and will serve sit-down diners as well as those just looking for a drink. SF bar veteran Duggan McDonnell (Cantina) is the director of beverage, and he’s created a program with draft beer, wine, cocktails, cold brew coffee, and a custom Marin Kombucha.

Ingredients for the cocktails are naturally Chinese-inspired, using items such as Kweichow Moutai, a liquor made from fermented sorghum, dried hawthorn, and starfruit vinegar. It results in drinks like the below:

Rooster King (Kweichow moutai, vodka, cognac, lime, five spice malt syrup, plum vinegar, dragonfruit tea)

Gold Mountain (rye, cognac, coconut sugar, housemade bitters, poppy liqueur)

Shanghai Kelly’s Bad Bad Pisco Punch (Pisco, pineapple rum, lime, pineapple, blue curaçao, gunpowder green tea, Falernum-spiced liqueur, orange bitters, ginger beer)

Retail Market

While half of the ground floor is dedicated to the restaurant and bar, the other half displays beautifully tempting tableware, kitchenware, pantry items, and fresh produce. It’s a food lover’s fever dream inside, where at every glance lies, say, custom looseleaf porcelain tea containers or barrel-aged fish sauce.

Chen and Wong-Chen curated many of the items themselves straight from China, much of which has never been sold in the United States before, as well as items commissioned specifically for China Live. For the domestic products, Chen and Wong-Chen turned to former Sur La Table CEO Kathy Tierney; Bi-Rite alum Allison Ball also had a hand in the curation of domestic pantry goods. It was important to Chen to sell goods that cannot be found from retailers like Amazon, or other high-end grocery stores.

The result is a wide array of goods, ranging from around $10 to $500, with about 1,000 displayed at any one time — which is only a portion of the inventory. There’s already a stockpile of products in the basement storage space, waiting for a turn, with a retail website in the works. Here’s just a mini list of what’s available right now:

Porcelain glazed in Malaysia and China

Silver and gold jewelry

Custom tea pots, sets, and to-go cups

Woks

Starfruit vinegar

A range of soy sauces, including organic black bean soy sauce and white soya essence

Jarred pickled sea beans

Whiskey barrel-aged fish sauce

Extra-virgin chamilia tea oil

Fresh produce, including mushrooms

Dried noodles and rice

Tea sourced straight from Chinese farmers by Chen, including his own blend of “Eight Treasure” tea, with dried dragon eye fruit, dried jujubes, Hawthorne, rose, lotus seeds, goji berry, chrysanthemum, rock sugar, and jasmine

Beyond the opportunity to purchase products, the retail area will offer tastings and classes. “It’s a very immersive, high-touch retail experience. I want people to learn about Chinese products at their core,” Chen said. “Just like with any cuisine, it starts with ingredients. If you don’t understand the ingredients, then the cuisine is scary. So if you can taste things and understand products, it’s not so scary.”

To that end, there will be classes, tastings, and videos projecting traditional Chinese cooking techniques onto the walls. There are two bars dedicated to tea and soy sauce, respectively, made out of a huge river rocks from China. At the tea area, you’ll be able to taste exquisite teas, some of which sell for $1,000/pound, and then purchase what you like by the ounce. There will also be constantly-changing, fresh-ground spices for purchase.

What’s to Come

“This is only phase one,” Chen is quick to point out during Eater’s preview tour. The second and third floors are scheduled to come online in the spring (though if the delays on this project were any indication, it could be later).

Eight Tables

The second floor will house Chen’s more upscale concept, Eight Tables, a seasonal eight-course Chinese tasting menu restaurant. It’s being positioned as a more exclusive space with a separate back alley entrance, meant to operate on the same playing field as Benu. This is obviously Chen’s pet project, in collaboration with chef de cuisine Lin.

“It’s fine dining where I’ll be wearing chef whites every night. All the food needs to pass my eyes; I wrote all the menus,” he said. “There’s no chicken powder or canned products allowed. Everything is housemade. No cutting corners.”

More Drinking Enclaves

There will also be a 40-seat, “sensuous” craft cocktail bar on the second floor that overlooks Broadway, as well as The Gold Mountain Lounge, a separate, 32-seat space for lounging about with your drinks, or available for private dining.

Eventually the rooftop will include a bar, as well as an herb garden. There is no timeline attached to that.

Private Dining

Finally, the third floor will house a private events space for 30 to 200 people, available for any type of gathering.

China Live opens at 644 Broadway on Wednesday, March 1 at 5 p.m. Thereafter, Oolong Cafe will open daily at 7 a.m., and the restaurant and retail portions will open daily at 11 a.m.