What most of the world calls "Chinese food" is one regional cuisine, badly translated. China has at least eight, and they disagree with each other about almost everything. Here's what to order where.
The one thing to understand first
Chinese food is regional to a degree that Europeans find surprising. A dish that is signature in one province may be unknown in the next. If your experience of Chinese food is sweet-and-sour and fortune cookies, you are about to have your assumptions rearranged in the best possible way.
The rough geography: the north eats wheat, the south eats rice. The west eats heat, the east eats sweetness, the coast eats seafood, and the interior eats whatever the mountains gave it.
Beijing and the north: wheat, lamb and imperial food
What to order
- Peking duck — carved at the table, eaten with thin pancakes, spring onion and sweet bean sauce. The one dish worth planning a meal around. Book ahead at a proper duck restaurant.
- Zhajiangmian — thick wheat noodles with a fermented bean and pork sauce. The everyday Beijing lunch.
- Jianbing — a savoury crepe with egg, crisp fried sheet and chilli sauce, folded and eaten from a paper bag. The best breakfast in China.
- Lamb hotpot — copper pot, boiling broth, hand-cut lamb, sesame dipping sauce. A winter institution.
- Baodu — quick-boiled tripe. Not for everyone; genuinely delicious.
Flavour profile: mild, savoury, wheat-based, heavy on lamb and vinegar. Not spicy. Good news if you don't like heat.
Xi'an and the Silk Road corridor: Muslim Chinese food
Xi'an's Muslim Quarter is the single best street-food district in China, and it exists because the Silk Road brought Central Asian traders who settled and never left. This is where Chinese food gets its Islamic strand.
- Yangrou paomo — torn flatbread soaked in lamb broth. You tear the bread yourself; it's a ritual.
- Biangbiang noodles — hand-pulled belt noodles, a metre long, with chilli oil and vinegar.
- Roujiamo — slow-cooked shredded pork in a flatbread bun. Xi'an's answer to a burger, and better than most burgers.
- Lamb skewers — cumin, chilli, charcoal. Buy them from the stall with the longest queue.
- Persimmon cakes and pomegranate juice — the Quarter's dessert course.
Flavour profile: cumin, chilli, vinegar, lamb. Hearty. The best value eating in China.
Chengdu and Sichuan: the heat you've heard about
Sichuan food is not just spicy. It is málà — numbing-and-hot, the tingle coming from Sichuan peppercorn, not chilli. Learning to tell the difference is the gateway to enjoying it.
- Hotpot — a divided pot of boiling chilli oil, into which you dip raw ingredients. Order the yin-yang pot if you want a mild half. This is a social meal, not a restaurant meal.
- Mapo tofu — silken tofu, minced beef, fermented bean, peppercorn. The dish that made Sichuan famous.
- Dan dan noodles — dry noodles with sesame, chilli oil and minced pork. Cheap, fast, superb.
- Kung pao chicken — the real version has dried chillies and peanuts and is nothing like the takeaway.
- Chuanchuan — skewers cooked in hotpot broth and charged by the stick. The local evening out.
- Ice jelly (bīngfěn) — the dessert that rescues your mouth.
If you can't take heat, you can still eat superbly in Chengdu. Say bù yào là (not spicy) and every kitchen will adapt — the food is cooked to order. We brief restaurants in advance on dietary requirements for our travellers.
Shanghai and the east coast: sweetness and the sea
- Xiaolongbao — soup dumplings. Bite a hole, drink the broth, then eat. Burning your palate is the rookie error.
- Shengjianbao — pan-fried soup dumplings, crispier and better, sold four to a paper cone.
- Hongshao rou — red-braised pork belly. Sweet, glossy, faintly aniseed.
- Drunken chicken and soy-braised fish — the region's cold-table tradition.
- Hairy crab — late autumn only, and worth planning a trip around if you're a crab person.
Flavour profile: sweet, soy-forward, delicate. The best region for travellers who want mild, refined food.
Guangzhou and the south: the best cooking in China
Cantonese cooks are widely regarded in China as the country's best, and the region's food is the closest to what westerners recognise as Chinese. It is also the healthiest: lightly cooked, steamed, barely sauced.
- Dim sum — the morning ritual. Har gow, siu mai, char siu bao, rice rolls. Order by ticking a card; the trolleys do the rest.
- Roast goose and char siu — hanging in every window. Ask for a portion of each.
- Wonton noodle soup — the definitive Cantonese bowl.
- Claypot rice — winter, with preserved sausage and a crisp layer at the bottom.
Flavour profile: fresh, subtle, steamed, sweet-savoury. If someone in your group is a fussy eater, bring them here.
Yunnan and the southwest: China's most surprising food
Yunnan borders Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, and its food reflects it — herbs, mushrooms, rice noodles, fermented greens, and the widest range of edible fungi on earth. It is the region that surprises even Chinese visitors.
- Crossing-the-bridge noodles — broth so hot it cooks the ingredients at the table.
- Wild mushroom dishes — in late summer. Sold under strict supervision for good reason.
- Rushan cheese — grilled cow's-milk cheese, sold on sticks. A Bai minority speciality.
- Steam-pot chicken — clear broth cooked in a ceramic pot. Deeply comforting.
Dietary requirements and how we handle them
Vegetarian and vegan
China is easier than its reputation, once you know the traps. The two biggest are: meat-based broths used in ostensibly vegetable dishes, and lard or pork fat used for frying. Both are avoidable, but only if someone asks in Chinese on your behalf — which is exactly what your guide does.
Halal
China has a large Muslim population and a long-established halal restaurant tradition, particularly in Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang and — importantly for travellers — in Xi'an's Muslim Quarter and in most cities' Hui neighbourhoods. We can route an entire trip through halal-certified kitchens.
Gluten-free, allergies and low-spice
Soy sauce contains wheat, which makes strict gluten-free cooking in China genuinely difficult without advance work. We brief each restaurant before the meal, provide a written Chinese card explaining the requirement, and confirm the day before. For severe allergies we choose restaurants with the capacity to separate preparation.
Ten dishes to try before you go home
- Peking duck, carved at the table, in Beijing.
- Biangbiang noodles in Xi'an's Muslim Quarter.
- Hotpot in Chengdu, with a yin-yang pot so everyone survives.
- Xiaolongbao in Shanghai, eaten correctly.
- Dim sum in Guangzhou, on a weekday morning.
- Crossing-the-bridge noodles in Kunming.
- Jianbing from a street cart for breakfast.
- Lamb skewers, from the stall with the queue.
- Red-braised pork belly, with rice.
- Ice jelly, after the hotpot.
Food is the part of a China trip travellers remember longest and plan for least. Tell us your dietary requirements and your appetite for heat, and we'll build the restaurants into the itinerary rather than leaving dinner to chance.
How to order without a menu
The single most useful skill in China, and it takes about ten minutes to learn.
- Point at another table. Reliable, universal and never resented. Works in every restaurant in the country.
- Point at a picture. Most mid-range restaurants have a picture menu or a wall of photographs. Point and hold up fingers for how many.
- Type the number. For price, put your phone's calculator on the table and let them enter a figure.
- Show a photo you took earlier. The dish you loved in the previous city can often be made here.
- Use the phrase 不要辣 (bù yào là) before you point. Say it first, then point. This order matters — the kitchen needs to know before they start.
Hygiene, practically
Chinese food safety is better than its reputation among western travellers. Restaurants are inspected, kitchens generally cook to order, and food is served hot — the single most effective safety measure that exists.
- Choose turnover over appearance. A busy stall with a queue is safer than a quiet shiny restaurant.
- Avoid lukewarm. Anything sitting in a warming tray for hours is the real risk, everywhere in the world.
- Fruit: wash and peel it. Peeling removes the issue entirely.
- Ice: fine in hotels, and in modern restaurants and cafés in major cities. Use judgement at street stalls.
- Water: bottled or boiled. Never tap.
Tea, drink and the social side
Meals in China are shared, and the table has rituals worth knowing. Tea is poured for others before yourself. The eldest or most senior person is served first. Toasting is done with both hands on the glass, and clinking slightly lower than the other person's glass is a mark of respect. If you're the guest, your host will order too much food; that's hospitality, not a challenge.
Baijiu — the national spirit — is a strong, clear sorghum liquor at around 50% alcohol. It is offered with real ceremony and consumed in small glasses. You are not obliged to drink it, and a polite refusal with both hands is understood. Water and tea are perfectly acceptable alternatives.
Tell us your dietary requirements when you write — vegetarian, halal, gluten-free, low-spice, allergies — and we brief every restaurant in Chinese the day before you arrive, and again on the morning.
Frequently asked
What food is China famous for?
Eight distinct regional cuisines, not one. The best known outside China are Cantonese (dim sum, roast meats), Sichuan (hotpot, mapo tofu) and northern (Peking duck, noodles). Travelling between regions is half the pleasure.
Is Chinese food spicy?
Only in some regions. Sichuan, Hunan and Chongqing are genuinely hot. Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou are mild, and every kitchen will reduce the chilli if asked. You can eat superbly across China without ever eating anything spicy.
Can I eat vegetarian in China?
Yes, with care. The main risks are meat-based broths and pork fat in vegetable dishes. Tell your guide and they will order in Chinese so the requirement is understood, and brief the restaurant before you arrive.
Is there halal food in China?
Yes, and a long tradition of it. Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Xi'an are especially easy, and most cities have Hui neighbourhoods with halal restaurants. A whole itinerary can be routed through halal-certified kitchens.
Is street food in China safe to eat?
Generally yes, at busy stalls with high turnover, where food is cooked to order and served hot. Avoid anything that has been sitting lukewarm, and watch what locals are queueing for — that is the reliable signal.