The hot pot restaurant was named after a dynasty. The bistro replacing it is named after that dynasty’s capital city.
Datang Hot Pot shut down on Leslie Road in Richmond in June, and the unit at 8140 Leslie Road has been dark since.
It reopens on August 14, under the same operator, but as something quite different.
The new sign reads 長安小酒館 above the English name, Datang Bistro.
Chang’an was the capital of the Tang dynasty, the same dynasty the old hot pot shop took its name from, and the city it sat in is the one we now call Xi’an.
That is not decoration but actually a menu hint.
Staff have teased to us on Northern Chinese cooking, including Xinjiang noodles and Peking duck, though the full menu has not been released.
Anyone who ate at the malatang version may remember the Xi’an-style Chinese burgers buried on that menu. The new concept moves that thread to the centre of the plate.
We should correct one thing from our own reporting while we are here.
When we covered the closure in June, a worker out front nodded when we asked whether the restaurant was changing hands, and we reported the space as turning over.
It was not.
The operator stayed and spent the summer rebuilding.
What they rebuilt is the more surprising part.
The old room was bright white and cream, the standard clean-and-cheerful look of a self-serve malatang shop.
That is entirely gone.
The room now runs dark and deliberately expensive-looking, with black panelled walls, fluted black columns, and black marble tables edged in brass.
Large framed panels of traditional Chinese landscape art in orange, teal and gold sit along the walls, lit from above, with amber glass lamps and a patterned ceiling finishing it.
It reads less like a Richmond noodle house and more like a Beijing hotel dining room.
The gap between those two rooms is the whole story here.
Datang Hot Pot lasted about 14 months on self-serve malatang, in a city that is not short of it and where Big Way already leads that particular race.
Rather than take the loss and hand back the keys, the operator has moved concepts entirely, into a category with fewer local competitors and a considerably higher ceiling per table.
Whether Richmond wants a dark-and-brass Northern Chinese bistro on Leslie Road is the question the next few months will answer.
Datang Bistro soft opens on August 14, and joins a run of upcoming Richmond spots including Mr. Noodle Chen, Molly Tea Richmond Centre, and Pho Net Viet.
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Address: 8140 Leslie Road, Richmond, BC