Guangzhou Food Travel Guide

Guangzhou – historically known as Canton – has one of the most influential culinary traditions in the world. Cantonese cuisine, which originated here in Guangdong province, is the style of Chinese cooking most widely known internationally, exported across the globe by generations of Cantonese emigrants. But experiencing it in Guangzhou itself is a revelation: the freshness, the precision, the extraordinary range of the cooking here bears little relation to what bears its name elsewhere. The city’s yum cha culture – the Cantonese tradition of drinking tea and eating dim sum in teahouses from early morning through the afternoon – is arguably the greatest food ritual in all of China, a slow, convivial, deeply satisfying way of eating that has been refined over centuries.

Guangzhou’s Shang Xia Jiu pedestrian street and the alleys of the old city are lined with specialist restaurants dedicated to a single craft: roast goose, char siu pork, wonton noodle soup, steamed fish. The city’s wet markets – particularly the Qingping Market – are extraordinary in their scope, stocked with live seafood, exotic vegetables, dried goods, and ingredients that would be impossible to find elsewhere. Guangzhou is also a city of serious fine dining: Cantonese haute cuisine, with its emphasis on pure flavours, pristine ingredients, and restrained technique, has produced some of Asia’s most celebrated restaurants. For food travelers, Guangzhou offers a depth and authenticity of Chinese culinary experience that few cities can match.