Beijing foodies were shocked recently when discovering that Black Sesame Kitchen (BSK) was shutting its doors. After serving for five years as a cooking school and a popular venue for expats to wine and dine in, BSK announced on its website that it was closing until further notice due disagreements with the landlord.
Here is the official announcement; a similar notice has been sent a couple of days earlier to those who had made upcoming reservations.
This situation has happened out of the blue and has come to a shock to everyone at Black Sesame Kitchen. It is with sadness, we must inform you due to irresolvable issues with our landlord, after 5 years Black Sesame Kitchen is unable to operate in our current space and will be moving to a new location.
Therefore, at this time we will not be taking any more dinner reservations for the month of March and April.
Dinner and cooking class reservations made with Black Sesame Kitchen for the rest of March 2014 and for April 2014 are now cancelled until further notice.
Dinner reservations made after 1st May and beyond, we have a record of your reservations and if we are able to quickly resolve this situation in finding a temporary or permanent location to hold your event, we will notify you as soon as possible.
For guests with cooking class reservations or wish to make reservations in April and May, we are busy securing a temporary location. Please contact for updates.
In the meantime, if you would like to be updated about any future reservations you have, or if you would like to hire our staff for off-site private dinners or cooking classes, please contact us at reservations@blacksesamekitchen.com or +86-136-9147-4408.
Please check back to our website or sign up for our newsletter for updates of our progress.Thank for your years of support, patience and understanding. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
WE WILL BE BACK…. very soon!
From everyone at Black Sesame Kitchen
26th March 2014
For those who’ve never had a chance to visit BSK, the venue was found in 2008 by Chicago-born chef and writer Jen Lin-Liu out of a passion for Chinese food. She is also the author of On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome with Love and Pasta (2013) and Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China (2008). To read more about Jen and her work, click here. To find out more about BSK, click here.
We’ve asked BSK’s management to keep us updated on the school’s search for a new venue. For now, let’s just keep our fingers crossed.
Photo from Black Sesame Kitchen
