Restaurant on the West Lake Looks Back

The people at Louwailou Restaurant on the West Lake feel extremely happy and proud about the West Lake’s inscription on the list of the World Heritage on June 24， 2011 during the 35th session of the World Heritage Committee in Paris

On August 18， 2011， the restaurant started a nostalgia event to promote 20 dishes of the old Hangzhou These dishes are named “Old Delicacies of the West Lake” The West Lake in the designation points to a historical fact that in the good old days， the Hangzhou cuisine was com-posed of two large schools: the city school and the lake school Louwailou was the leading restaurant of the lake dishes Many of the 20 had not been on a restaurant menu anywhere across the city for decades and all of them were on the menus of Louwailou as early as 1945 The event will last through September this year and during this period， visitors are invited to sample these dishes free of charge at the restaurant

The twenty delicacies of the past reflect the best cooking tradition of Louwailou and partly indicate why it still enjoys booming business in its 162nd year whereas most old restaurants have vanished into history Visitors are welcomed to find out what choice materials and ingredients are used in these dishes and how they are prepared The restaurant people are more than willing to inform and show

The 162-year-old restaurant is proud of its star-studded history and rich cultural heritage Moreover， the restaurant consid-ers itself an integral part of the cultural landscape of the lake The West Lake is a cultural phenomenon in nature and， located near the Solitary Hill， the restaurant is close to many of the 24 key world-heritage pres-ervation sites of the West Lake

Louwailou starts the nostalgia event in a bid to give full play to its strong cultural heritage Restaurant CEO Shen Guanzhong emphasizes the business guideline of Louwailou: dishes and culture play an equally important part in the restaurant’s prosperity The old dishes tell stories of the past ties between the restaurant and cultural celebrities and testify to the long history of the restaurant The list of celeb-rities of the 20th century is long enough to include scholars， artists， scientists， and political leaders The restaurant has even preserved bills of these individual visits The restaurant is also proud to hold a large collection of celebrities’ paintings and cal-ligraphic inscriptions These artworks are extremely valuable on the market and in terms of cultural history □