Men on the menu
Restaurants employ male models as waiters to attract female diners
Each night, hundreds of mostly female customers queue patiently outside Caochang Huoguo, a hotpot restaurant in Beijing's Chaoyang district. They come not for the food, but the opportunity to be swept off their feet - sometimes literally.
The restaurant is staffed by a rotating roster of handsome international male models, hailing from Brazil, the US and the UK. Although they are technically waiters, occasionally serving drinks, it would be more accurate to describe them as entertainers.
On the evening Metropolitan visited the restaurant, the model for the night was a 30-year-old heartthrob from Brazil, William Gabriel. Naked from the waist up, he frolicked from table to table, flirting with various women, leaning in so they could give him a peck on the cheek. On more than one occasion he lifted them into his arms, to cheers and wolf-whistles from other customers.
"I think my job makes the girls happy and feel special," said Gabriel. "The girls come here, and there is some handsome guy [to] give them their beer and [other] things."
While such gimmicks have long been common in Japan and South Korea, where women can go to establishments known as "host clubs" to be charmed by good-looking men, in China, it is a new phenomenon.
Qin Shanqiang, the co-founder of the restaurant, said that it is a sign of greater equality for women, and a growing realization that women are just as fond of ogling handsome men as men are of beautiful women.
"Our business philosophy is to be a restaurant that caters to women," said Qin. "Women today are financially independent, they have spending power, and they are willing to spend money on things that make them happy."
The culinary industry is just one of many who are paying greater attention to women customers on account of their increased spending power in recent years. Photo: Li Hao/GT
What women want
Qin said the staff at the restaurant go to great lengths to please their female customers. Every female diner is given a complimentary bottle of Hoegaarden, and even the toilets are tastefully decorated with peach blossoms, he said.
"I believe that if we can get more women in the restaurant, the men will follow," said Qin, laughing.
He pointed out that it was not just in the restaurant industry that businesses were paying more attention to how they could attract women. Hollisters, a clothing label, has also started employing male models in its stores, and a recent Alibaba report showed that 40 percent of its sales volume was accounted for by products targeting women, such as cosmetics and women's footwear, Qin said.
Qin said that since opening three months ago, they have averaged around 400 customers each night.
Wang Na, a 34-year-old online shop owner from Beijing, was one of the customers at the restaurant on the night Metropolitan visited. She said when Gabriel came over to her table, she took the opportunity to ask him to feed her a slice of boiled mutton. "He's so handsome, and he's not lewd at all, even without his shirt on," Wang said. "When I traveled to London two years ago, I went to a restaurant with male models as waiters, but I didn't take any pictures because they weren't handsome."
Wang said the restaurant showed a growing acceptance of female sexuality in China, challenging traditional social mores which required women be more reserved when it came to the opposite sex.
"Before I came to China, I thought [that] Chinese women's social status was lower than men," Gabriel said. "Now I can see women in China can do whatever they want. They enjoy the same rights as men."
One male customer, 33-year-old Ma Zhifei, jokingly complained it wasn't fair there were only male models.
Above the din, he shouted that he would return to the restaurant in two months after working out.
"I'll rip off my shirt in front of the male model, to show him that Chinese men's bodies can be just as good as foreigners!"
South Korean heartthrobs
Another recently opened restaurant catering to female clientele by only hiring good-looking male waiters is Nine Road Pizzeria in Chaoyang district.
A franchise restaurant in South Korea, Nine Road Pizzeria opened its first branch in China last October. Of their 30 attractive male waitstaff, 10 have been brought over from South Korean branches of the store, said Liu Lin, the project director of the Chaoyang branch.
Each night at 7 pm, the waiters give a song and dance performance to a South Korean pop tune.
"We want to provide customers not only with delicious food, but also to entertain them," said Liu.
Kim Hyun Soo, one of the waiters who was brought over from South Korea, said that almost every evening, female diners would ask to take pictures with him.
"I think they transferred me to China because I'm good-looking," said Kim, laughing. Kim said that despite South Korea's reputation for cosmetic surgery, he had never gone under the knife.
"The dining atmosphere here is relaxing, with Korean pop music and handsome 'Ouba' ['older brothers'] around. It's like walking onto the set of a South Korea romantic drama," said Ella Zhang, a 27-year-old diner.
What about the food?
Most diners can expect to spend between 80 yuan ($13) and 100 yuan for a meal at either restaurant.
Liu said that Nine Road Pizzeria, which opened in October, averages around 1,000 customers each day. While diners might be attracted by the promise of being charmed by a handsome man, Liu said that they still needed to ensure their food was up to standard if they wanted customers to come back.
On that count, Zhang said the restaurant has succeeded.
"I really like the sweet potato pan pizza in here. It's so soft and mellow," said Zhang.
Qin agreed that besides the gimmick of having topless male models, it was important that the quality of the food was high.
Toward this end, the restaurant bought its beef and mutton from Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and used mineral water in their broth, rather than tap water.
"Water is essential to the flavor of hotpot," said Qin. "Unlike other places, which just use tap water in their broth, we use bottled mineral water from Laoshan in Shandong Province."
Still flustered from her encounter with Gabriel, Wang was quick to endorse the food at Caochang Huoguo.
"I really like the flavor of the hotpot," she said. "I'll definitely come back. It's a great place to relax and let go of myself."