Phillppe Starck must have left his brain in Paris when he came to Beijing to design the LAN club. This place looks like the worst possible outcome of an uneducated Chinese person's imagination of what French style looks like. Normally I don't feel like throwing up until I'm about to leave a drinking establishment, but the moment I step out of the elevator into the LAN, the nausea sets in. In fact just thinking about it makes me throw up a little in my mouth, but I shall continue as the public must be warned of the gaudiness of this place.

Went there last Sunday to see a show that some friends of mine were in. I paid 170 Yuan for a ticket which was supposed to include two cocktails. Sat down, the rather nice looking girl next to me went to the bar and came back with a double whiskey which she told me she got on her ticket. I went to the bar and asked for whiskey and they told me no way. Went back and sat down to watch the show, a bit disgruntled. The waiter came over and gestured at my ticket and asked if I would like a drink. Whiskey, I said. The girl next to me leaned over helpfully and showed him her whiskey and said "He'll have what I'm having". The waiter made an elaborate hand gesture which roughly translated as "No way". At that point I felt effectively thrown out so I left. They took 170 Yuan from me and gave me nothing. I wouldn't have minded if they had one rule and stuck to it, but I was discriminated against on the grounds of age and gender, I fear.

I will never ever go there again. I would give it no stars if I could.

The reviews for this place are so polarising, it's worth going just to make up our own mind. Despite the squeals of horror in some reviews, think "hate the decor dharling", I really liked LAN.

Yes, it's a bit whacky and weird, dramatic and large, and sure the art is loud, but that's why our group of 8 went there. We wanted to have some fun to celebrate a friends thirty-mumble birthday. So here's what we found on a Tuesday night in Beijing.

The service we had was great. I'd give the staff 5/5. Quick, courteous and not too intrusive. Being a Tuesday the place was only 1/3 busy, so the staff were not under pressure.

Food was also good. We had a Chinese set menu, and some of the dishes were amazing, some very good, none average or bad. All presented nicely and overall 4/5.

Alcohol is expensive, and oddly priced. We got a sharp deal on red wine (yay), but those drinking small bottles of local beer were robbed at 50 kuai a bottle - LAN needs to sort the drinks menu for sure 2.5/5 on that count.

Toilets - These are FAB FAB FAB - some will complain they are over the top (they are). But in a city of hutong squats, and restaurants with no toilets, save for having to slum it in the public dunny at the adjacent shopping mall, LAN is a revelation in the toilet department. 5/5

Overall experience, well we had a great one. And that's why you would probably go somewhere like LAN. If it's a steak dinner you are after, that's not LAN. If it's that once in a while go somewhere really different to escape the World - then LAN's your place.

Pretentious, over-rated, and the worst meal I have been served in Beijing.

The Avoccado was so hard not even squuezing it between two spoons could change its shape. The Tuna looked like SPAM or a version of chum - that stuff you throw in the sea to catch fish with.

Australian Beef is served cold, and when returned to be heated came back colder.

Wine is outrageously expensive; they only serve Evian and you have service attendants that have never been trained by management, nor do they know the menu as they can not speak english.

If you like austentaous, lots of plastic and and all things imitation in life this is where you could lie down , die and go to heaven. Everything is imatation around you including the chairs you have to sit on. They look something out of Draculas Castle, are so un-comfortable and you fear the chair will eventually collapse if you force any of the tripe they serve down you throut and add any weight to you body.

There are surprisingly no dogs in the restaurant ; one would have thought by serving such rubbish that at least you could throw it on the concrete floor for them.

We eventually had to leave and search for a restaurant that served food & had someone running the place.

Dont waste a moment there. Better to spend your time going to the City Dump.

I for one only go to lan about once every two months but when i go I thoroughly enjoy it. Going on a weekday when there are not too many tourists and the crowd is often composed of 4-5 big groups. I love the decor which I think is so completely different from anywhere else in Beijing. And where in the world can you get a drink in a Phillipe Stark bar and pay less than 15 USD for a drink? I agree this is not a place you should go for partying, you go there with a group 4-7 people enjoy the decor, enjoy the decent drink, and if your not dressed like an English teacher and behaving like Beijing owes your their utter devotion you will get a decent service.

The decor is absolutely horrendous and the place is filled with way too many pretentious people. Doesn't help that the music is weak too - they need to replace the live band.

Reading the last review I just had to sign up and chime in. The duck is not worth a visit to LAN...period. Why? Because LAN is overly expensive and their duck gave me a very extreme case of food poisoning. Now, I'm not one to throw around these types of allegations with disregard but I am 99% sure the duck is what did it and here is why:

1. I didn't eat anything else that day except crackers.
2. I got sick within 45 minutes of eating
3. I went to the doctor who confirmed that I had food poisoning.
4. The only thing I threw up was what I ate at Lan.
5. I was sick for two days afterward

I've had food poisoning once in my life before. It's not the same as getting dysentery which I think is a common misunderstanding. You know you have food poisoning when your body wants to expel everything very soon after eating. Most of the time it comes up first. Then it's very hard to keep down anything and finally it ends by even water going from your mouth to your backside faster than it ever has in your life. That is food poisoning and that is what I had and that is why I am writing this review. Because ONE SHOULD NEVER GET FOOD POISONING FROM A RESTAURANT THAT TRIES TO POSITION ITSELF AMONG BEIJING'S TOP RESTAURANTS / BARS.

Another highly overrated icon on the Beijing scene further demonstrating signs of withering under the stress of its own excess. If this were an amusement park it would be highly rated horror house but as a bar or even a restaurant, it excels only at being sub-average. The drinks are sometimes good, sometimes bad. Sometimes they just don’t arrive at all. I am not impressed nor should you be just because you’re thirsty in a bar with paintings on the ceiling.

For dinner, just don’t. Honestly, just don’t. The food is awful. The best thing on the menu continues to be the dandan mian -- the most basic and inexpensive food this great nation manages to produce. In a normal restaurant dandan mian is 2 RMB; At an upscale restaurant, 5-7RMB; At LAN, over 20 RMB. As if awful isn’t enough, how about awful and expensive. I was there for their opening night and they couldn’t get the finger food correct (who serves fish with bones as finger food?). After two years of trial and error, one would think they would have come around and improved staff, management, or the food. Alas, none of that has happened. It has instead, continued to disappoint. The owners insist on throwing good money after bad in club that existed up until the Olympics because there were few other options. Now, Beijing has more and more options and we needn’t put up with a highly polished glitter and glitz approach to poor quality food and nightlife.

For all the money spent on the decor it is a shame that there wasn't any left over to train or motivate the staff.

The interior is as fantastically unique as the service is appallingly poor. I have been forced to phone the office number on the back of their matchbook to request a drink at the bar as the staff were too busy gossiping with each other at the other end of the bar to notice my frantic waiving and throwing of icecubes.

The experience of the bar staff and the quality of the drinks makes a mockery of the very high prices charged. 100RMB for a mixed drink is a very steep price to pay considering the effort that goes into ordering it and the surly indifference with witch it is served.

For a more enjoyable night out, I can suggest taking a bottle of Gin into IKEA and staring at the ceiling in the lamp section for a couple of hours instead.

please update this listing, the correct site is http://www.lan-global.com/