Zhang Lan

Chairman of the Board of Directors of South Beauty Group

Zhang Lan comes from a scholarly family and went to Canada when she was young. He returned to China in 1991 and then joined the catering industry and ran a Sichuan restaurant called "Alan Restaurant". In 2000, she founded "Beauty Jiangnan".

Who would have such an idea to build a Sichuan restaurant full of modern art in the top office building in Beijing? Six years ago, Zhang Lan, a bold woman, opened the first such Sichuan restaurant in Guomao, Beijing. Different from the common mid-to-low-end Sichuan cuisine, "Beauty Jiangnan" has fine workmanship and exquisite ingredients, and is mainly aimed at high-end business people.

Before the appearance of "Beautiful Jiangnan", many high-end office buildings in Beijing only had Cantonese restaurants, and the prices were high, which excluded many ordinary white-collar workers. Years of experience in catering have told Zhang Lan that this group of people with strong spending power require restaurants to be tasteful, have a comfortable environment, and have hygienic food with good color, fragrance, and moderate prices. It is for this consumer group that Zhang Lan tailor-made a high-end Chinese restaurant "Beautiful Jiangnan" that integrates food, fashion and art space.

What Zhang Lan did not expect was that just a few years later, "Beautiful Jiangnan" would have grown into a large catering group with 20 high-end chain restaurants across the country, with operating income in 2005 exceeding 400 million yuan. The Wall Street Journal even wrote an article saying that it created "a new concept of Chinese dining."

Qiao Zhang Lan from South Beauty doesn’t like to use “strong woman” to describe herself. In her eyes, "strong women" give people the feeling of being "cold" and cold. She attributes her success to intuition and sudden inspiration as well as being "too focused" on doing things. If there is anything else to add, it would probably be the peace of mind brought about by women's lack of utility. Her office is littered with pottery, porcelain and glass plates. Like a little girl who loves to play "house", she likes to play with all kinds of tableware, trying to create the most ideal color and shape combination. In this way, Zhang Lan uses her gentle woman's heart to carry out seemingly easy but important daily work.

Zhang Lan, who disdains being a "strong woman", has led a new trend in the development of Chinese food. Her focus and sensitivity combined with a gentle woman's mentality have made her career and life successful.