Hampshire's Premier Oriental Restaurant
You enter through a cottage country doorway into the exotic and the oriental; a small piece of Raffles Hotel in an English country town. This is The Black Bean - not just any Chinese restaurant but a colonial Chinese Shanghai Tang with Thai influence - the first of its kind to be found outside London.
You won't find a hint of red flocked wallpaper in this smart new Stockbridge venue. Owner David Pang (Wailam), knew exactly what he wanted to create. A few years ago he went over to Thailand to bring back with him a container load of genuine oriental antiques; he then created just the kind of ambient setting that was colonial oriental living before the war.
To eat at The Black Bean is not just a pleasure - it's a whole new experience.