Sichuan province is one of the hottest destinations in the world for foodies, and there is no better place to get acquainted with China’s most popular cuisine than in the capital city, Chengdu. Food will quite possibly be the highlight of your trip to Panda City. Adventurous eaters, food travellers and normal people like me and you will find Chengdu food delicious, varied, colourful, and yes, HOT!
Between seeing the pandas and chilling in Chinese tea houses, you really must also make time to explore the incredible food in Chengdu. Don’t know where or what to eat in Chengdu? Don’t worry; our Chengdu foodie guide will show you the most famous (and delicious) food in China’s culinary capital.
“The best cuisine is from China, while the richest flavor is from Chengdu”.
Chinese saying
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Quick Chengdu Menu
Best Street Food: Jinli Street & Kuan Zhai Alley
Our favourite restaurant in Chengdu: Chén má pó dòufu
Tip: Coconut milk acts as a fire extinguisher if the food’s too spicy for you.
Recommended Food Tour:
Eat Like a Local Street Food Night Tour
Hidden Dishes & Beer UNESCO Food Tour
Where to stay: Sfeel Designer Hotel, Tianfu Square
A Little on Chengdu Food Culture
Sichuan cuisine (or Szechuan food for you North Americans) is the most popular cuisine in all of China and has also taken the world by storm. Food is such an integral part of life and culture in Chengdu that the city boasts the title of UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy.
Chengdu was the first city in Asia to get this prestigious recognition in 2010 for its rich food culture and traditions. Today, Chengdu is, without a doubt, the gastronomical capital of China. The city is home to over 2,000 superchefs and about 70,000 regular chefs, around 60,000 restaurants and even more in the informal food industry.
Food is everywhere in Chengdu, and the wonderful food scene, culture, history, and arts make it one of the best places to visit in China.
What sets Sichuan cuisine apart from the rest is the copious amounts of spice that goes into it. Everything else you’ll ever eat after visiting Chengdu will be rather bland.
Is Chengdu Food Spicy?
Does the pope live in Rome?
Chengdu food is known for its incredible level of spiciness – you have not had spicy food unless you’ve eaten Sichuan cuisine. But it’s not all fire and hell and inferno and liquid magma. The beauty of Sichuan cuisine is how that liquid magma dances around with the other six flavours: sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, aromatic and salty.
The main ingredients to a knockout Chengdu eat are Sichuan peppercorns (mala), chilli oil, and doubanjiang (fermented bean paste). To complete the taste profile, throw in some rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, garlic (and more pepper) to balance with the spice.
The most distinct ingredient is the Sichuan peppercorns or mala in Chinese. Also called Chinese prickly ash, these peppercorns are straight from hell and Lucifer’s go-to snack. When eating dishes that contain mala, your lips and tongue will start tingling and go a little numb after just a few bites. The only way to stop the burn is to keep on eating!
Sichuan pepper is actually not related to either pepper or chilli, but a genus on its own that’s a distant relative of citrus.
Top tip: Coconut milk (椰汁), served in cans, is the best remedy if you find Sichuan food too spicy.
Tips When Ordering Food in Chengdu
With so many layers of spiciness, follow these guidelines when ordering food in Chengdu. After a few years of dipping into the good stuff from Sichuan, I’ve built up my spice tolerance to zhong la…on a brave day.
For first-timers, I suggest starting at wei la and building up from there.
- 不辣 bu la, not spicy at all
- 微辣 wei la, a *little* spicy
- 少辣 shao la, a little spicier than wei la
- 中辣 zhong la, medium spicy
- 辣 la, spicy
- 多辣 duo la, very spicy
- 超辣 chao la, super spicy (expert level)
Famous Chengdu Food: What to Eat & Where
Jinli Street and Kuan Zhai Alley are both great places for Chengdu street food. Here, you’ll find food from all over Sichuan, and you can simply point at what you fancy.
We’ll also show you our recommended restaurants in Chengdu to try some of the city’s most famous food.
Sichuan Hotpot (火锅)
No trip to Chengdu is complete before dipping into its bubbling pots of liquid magma hotpot. Eating hotpot is a wonderful communal affair, and friends and family can spend hours sitting around the hotpot chatting and dipping their food into the boiling broth.
Surprisingly, hotpot is a favourite dish in summer. Chinese believe that the sweat-inducing hotpot will actually help you cool down.
When ordering, you first choose your broth according to the level of spiciness (see above). It’s a good idea to get a split pot with different broths in one pot. Split pots can be divided into two, three, or four sections, each containing a different flavour, such as tomato, mushroom, mala, or meat bone broths.
After deciding on a pot, you’ll go ahead and order the food that will actually go into the pot. Thinly sliced raw beef, lamb or pork, sausages, shrimp and other seafood, offal, noodles, bamboo shoots, and various vegetables are just some options you can order.
Ordering is usually easily done on iPads with picture menus, or a staff member with the best English ability (or the best translator App) will be assigned to the foreigner table.
We are not done yet. Now, you have to go and mix your dipping sauce. Most hotpot restaurants have a sauce bar where you can mix and match and create your perfect dipping sauce.
Now you’re finally ready, so start dipping away and enjoy!
Recommended hotpot restaurant: Xiaolong Kan (小龙坎) has several branches in Chengdu. Having to wait to get a table (free snacks and drinks while waiting) is always a sign of a good hotpot establishment.
Mapo Doufu (麻婆豆腐)
A Sichuan favourite, Mapo Doufo is a dish of soft tofu cubes smothered in chili oil, mala, tender ground beef or pork, and doubanjiang (fermented bean paste).
While this may sound insanely spicy, it’s not really the case. Mapo doufu releases its heat slowly and gradually builds up. Only after a few bites will good old mala come and introduce itself.
Mapo doufu was invented at Chen Ma Po Dou Fua, a small Chengdu restaurant in 1862, and this restaurant still serves the best in town. You can also get many other famous Chengdu dishes here. There are now several branches scattered across the city.
Where to eat the best Mapo doufu in Chengdu: Chen Ma Po Dou Fua (陈麻婆豆腐) has been serving the most sought-after Mapo Doufu for over 150 years. Go there – you can thank us later.
There are a few branches in Chengdu. We went to the Qīng Huá Lù Diàn ((青华路店)) branch and everything was just grand.
Dan Dan Mian (担担面)
These spicy noodles need no introduction and are one of the most popular dishes in Sichuan cuisine. Slightly sour, definitely spicy and nutty, and not that greasy, Dan Dan noodles are one of the most famous snacks in Chengdu.
Stretchy and slightly chewy noodles topped with ground meat are smothered in a spicy chilli sauce and peanut or sesame paste, and yes, it is as good as it sounds. Oh, and there are also minced garlic, scallion, soy sauce and preserved vegetables in to complete that distinctive flavour profile.
They are good starters when eating at restaurants or a quick bite on the street.
Where to eat the best Dan Dan noodles in Chengdu: You’ll find them all over the city. The bowl we had at Chen Ma Po Dou Fua was pretty good.
Kung Pao Chicken (宫保鸡丁)
People all over the world just love a good ol’ Kung Pao (Gongbao jiding), but there is still no better place to eat it than in its natural habitat.
Kung Pao chicken is a stir-fry dish made with cubed chicken, leeks or onion, peanuts and, of course, a small mountain of red chillies. The chicken really is the star of this simple but tasty dish.
Kung Pao does not contain any mala, but the heat from the chillies can be quite intense.
Where to eat the best Kung Pao in Chengdu: You guessed it: Chen Ma Po Dou Fua does a great Kung Pao!
Chuanchuanxiang (串串)
Hotpot meets skewers meets fondue. Chuan chuan is almost like the traditional hotpot, but everything will be on bamboo skewers that you simply put into the hotpot. When it’s cooked, you can simply take it out of the pot and eat it directly off the stick. You don’t even need chopstick skills to enjoy chuanchuan!
This type of hotpot is a lot easier (but equally tasty) for first-timers wishing to experience hotpot but find ordering hotpot a bit intimidating.
First of all, the Chinese characters (串串) are easy to remember as it looks like food on skewers. So look out for 串串 on the streets if you’re looking for a tasty chuan chuan place.
Second, chuan chuan is self-service, so you don’t need to struggle with menus or translation Apps. You can walk up to the fridge and just start filling your basket with whatever you want. Beef, lamb, pork, shrimp, mussels, fish balls, tofu, cabbage, broccoli, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, sausages, cauliflower, duck tongue and much more. Like traditional hotpot, you can also mix your own dipping sauce from the sauce bar.
Once you have enough, simply go back to your table and start cooking. Need more? Simply go back to the fridge and help yourself.
At the end of your meal, you can signal a member of staff who will either count or weigh the sticks and present you with your (very reasonable) bill.
Where to go for chuanchuan in Chengdu: Cheap, colourful and damn tasty, Ma lù biān biān (吗路边边) is where you want to go.
Fuqi Feipain (夫妻肺片)
This dish is served at room temperature and is often eaten as an appetizer. Being offal it is all about the texture. Surprisingly, Fuqi Feipain is said to be the most popular snack in all of Sichuan province.
Jin really liked it, but I had two bites before deciding it wasn’t for me and focussed on my dang dang noodles instead.
Where to eat Fuqi Feipain in Chengdu: Xiǎo Tán Dòuhuā (小谭豆花) near Tianfu Square
San Zi Douhua (馓子豆花)
Crispy, fried noodles are the perfect texture companion to silky smooth tofu. San Zi refers to the crispy crumbles on top, while Douhua is the tofu.
You can have the douhua in various ways: with chilli oil, with mala spice or simply with light soy sauce.
Where to go for Douhua in Chengdu: Xiǎo Tán Dòuhuā (小谭豆花) near Tianfu Square is popular with locals, and they serve various Sichuan dishes.
Tangyuan (汤圆)
This traditional Chinese dessert is not unique to Chengdu or Sichuan province and can be found all over China.
It is a ball of glutinous rice flour that is usually filled with deliciously gooey and sweet black sesame paste. These balls are boiled in water or syrup and then served hot. The combination of the sticky rice flour ball and the sweet sesame paste oozing out when you bite into it is very satisfying.
Tangyuan is traditionally prepared by families and eaten during Lantern Festival but is available year-round.
Where to eat Tangyuan in Chengdu: Popular as street food and in restaurants, you can find a comforting bowl of Tangyuan all over Chengdu.
Chengdu Snacks & Street food
For the best (tourist and western-palate friendly) street food, make your way to Jinli Street or Kuan Zhai Alley.
Ka Bing (卡饼)
Bing (bread) almost always refers to some kind of flatbread in China. There are countless variations on this depending on the region and season. Bing can be baked, fried, or steamed and either be sweet or savoury. They can be plain or filled and can be found in all cities across China.
We had (more than one or two) very delicious Ka Bings when we visited the Buddha of Leshan. These bings were steamed in bamboo baskets and stuffed with fatty BBQ pork, cilantro, preserved vegetables and spicy sauce.
Mu Yun Zangxiang Zhu (牧云藏香猪)
We spotted what looked like a log when strolling along Jinli Street. On closer inspection, it turned out to be the…outer shell (for lack of better words) of a pig!
The boar’s entire skin and a layer of underlying fat were stretched over a wireframe and baked into a massive piece of pork crackling! Perfectly seasoned and crunchy, this was one of the most delicious and unique snacks we had in Chengdu.
This is something that we haven’t seen anywhere else in all of our travels. The sign translates to Tibetan Pig.
Mala Tutou (麻辣兔头)
Another yummy street food snack, but definitely more for adventurous food travellers, is Mala Tutou. It is rabbit head, and once you get your head around it, tastes pretty damn good!
The heads are first blanched in boiling water before being left to soak overnight in a concoction of salt, cooking wine, and ginger powder. The next day, the heads are stewed over high heat and spices such as fennel, cinnamon, and, of course, mala are added.
Eating mala tutou is very much like eating crab or lobster – crack it open to get to the good stuff. Licking off your spicy fingers is part of the whole experience.
If you think that mala tutou is the best and you love trying unique food, check out this food guide to Peru, where guinea pig is on the menu
Pineapple Sticky Rice (菠蘿糯米飯)
If all of this sounds too spicy or weird, then you’ll love pineapple sticky rice. Glutinous rice is mixed with pieces of pineapple and goji berries, and the result is sweet and sticky, as to be expected. It comes in half a pineapple and is served with plastic spoons, but it’s so sticky that using your hands is probably a better idea.
Chengdu Food: What Will You Eat Next?
What is your favourite food in Chengdu? Let us know in the comments below! If you’re still hungry, also check out our Food guide to Macau and Gaziantep, two other fantastic UNESCO Cities of Gastronomy.