Taste Made

Taste Made opened in Qixing district in 2018 with an explicit ambition: to reposition Guangxi cuisine for a generation of Chinese diners who expected the same plating, pacing, and service sophistication they had experienced in Shanghai and Chengdu. The kitchen draws from the Eight Great Cuisines of China but anchors its identity in Guangxi regional traditions — the sour-and-fresh flavour profile, the reliance on river fish and freshwater shrimp, the herbal undertones drawn from the region's mountain larders.

The menu is organised as a loose tasting format, with six to eight courses arriving in progression. Signature preparations include a refined version of Luosifen — the fermented-snail rice-noodle soup that defines Guangxi street food — served as a two-course dish with the noodles and broth presented separately. A Guangxi-style smoked duck, often tableside-sliced. A roasted river fish preparation using the local Li River carp. And a mountain-herb salad course that draws from ingredients specific to the karst ecology.

The room is the other competitive advantage. Guilin lacks restaurants built for slow dining — most rooms are high-turnover, bright-lit, and optimised for the lunch-rush Chinese business cadence. Taste Made is the opposite: dark-oak floors, warm low lighting, tables spaced for conversation, and a pacing that allows a business dinner to extend for three hours without feeling stretched. The bar programme includes a respectable whisky list and a small selection of Ningxia Chinese wines.

Service is careful and patient, with staff briefed on each dish's provenance. English service is less polished than at the Shangri-La, but a member of the management team usually speaks enough English to host an international diner directly. For a local Chinese business counterpart, Taste Made reads as culturally literate — the modern Guangxi framing is genuinely appreciated by sophisticated diners from elsewhere in China.

For a business dinner with a local Guilin counterpart — especially a younger executive — Taste Made hits the right cultural notes. The venue signals that you have done the work to find a modern, serious Guangxi restaurant rather than defaulting to a hotel dining room or a tourist-trail lunch spot. The tasting-menu format eliminates the socially-fraught negotiation of who orders what, and the room's pacing allows for a proper three-hour dinner. Book the small private alcove for parties of four to six, and expect a bill in the ¥300–500 per head range — affordable enough to reorder without stress.