One of China’s longest-standing favorites loved for purity and prestige, Bird’s Nest Soup is China’s most exclusive culinary elixir.
Since over 400 years ago, Bird’s Nest Soup has been a symbol of prosperity and prestige in Chinese imperial palaces. Composed of the swiftlets’ highly valued nests, the soup has adorned the tables of emperors and ranks as one of the globe’s most refined—and most expensive—soups.
Harvested from Southeast Asian limestone caves, the nests are constructed of hardened saliva prized for its gelatinous texture and supposed youth-reviving properties. Scalded and steeped in rock sugar or pale chicken broth, they are fashioned into silky, translucent opulence such as the world has never seen.
Now, Bird’s Nest Soup is served in Michelin-starred establishments like Hong Kong’s Lung King Heen, golden bowls filled with or without abalone or crab essence. Its sweetness and softness can nurture the Chinese appetite for harmony and nourishment.
To be sipping Bird’s Nest Soup is to be sipping history—a fleeting instant when decadence is stirred into healthiness, and excess into eternal wisdom.
