What to eat in Shanghai: 25 local dishes and what's in them

The short answer. Shanghai food is sweet-savoury and built on soy sauce, sugar and rice wine. The dishes to know are soup dumplings (xiaolongbao), pan-fried buns (shengjian), wontons, the four-part street breakfast, red-braised pork, and hairy crab in autumn. Pork runs through most of them, often where you cannot see it: in the filling, the stock or the fat. The list below says what each dish is and what is in it, so you can order with confidence or know what to avoid.

This page names dishes, not restaurants. For how to order, see Eating in Shanghai when you can’t read the menu. If you cannot eat something, build a card in Chinese with our dietary card tool.

What makes Shanghai food different?

Local home cooking is called benbang cai (本帮菜, běnbāng cài), “local-style food”. The national heritage list describes its style as nong you chi jiang (浓油赤酱): plenty of oil, dark soy sauce, sugar, and a glossy, deep-red finish. Its main methods are red-braising (红烧, hóngshāo), stewing, and marinating in wine lees (糟, zāo), and its flavour sits between sweet and salty. The national list added the benbang cooking technique in 2014. More on this in Benbang cuisine.

Three things are in a lot of Shanghai food, and they matter if you have a diet or an allergy:

Cooking wine (料酒 liàojiǔ or 黄酒 huángjiǔ). It goes into braises and marinades. Some cold dishes, such as drunken chicken and lees-marinated dishes, are soaked in wine and are not cooked again.
Sugar. Many savoury dishes are sweet. If you need little or no sugar, ask.
Pork. It is in dumpling fillings, in stocks, and sometimes as lard. The city government’s own guide to wontons says the broth is made from pork bones, chicken bones or ham with a little lard.

Dumplings and buns

Dish	What it is	What’s in it
Xiaolongbao 小笼包 (xiǎolóngbāo)	Small steamed dumplings with hot soup inside	Minced pork and jellied pork skin, which melts into soup; thin wheat wrapper. Crab versions add crab meat and roe.
Shengjian 生煎 (shēngjiān)	Buns fried on the bottom, steamed on top	Pork filling; the “soup” style has pork-skin aspic too; wheat dough; sesame and spring onion on top in many shops.
Wontons 馄饨 (húntun)	Dumplings in broth	Pork with bok choy or shepherd’s purse; broth of pork or chicken bones, often with lard, egg strips, seaweed and spring onion.
Fresh-meat mooncake 鲜肉月饼 (xiānròu yuèbing)	Hot flaky pastry with a meat filling, best around the Mid-Autumn Festival	Pork belly and lean pork in layered wheat pastry. The city’s guide to one well-known version says its layers are made with butter; other makers use lard, so ask.

Breakfast

The classic street breakfast is called the four heavenly kings (四大金刚, sì dà jīngāng). The Shanghai government’s food guide lists them as:

Dish	What it is	What’s in it
Dabing 大饼 (dàbǐng)	Oven-baked flatbread	Wheat; savoury with spring onion or sweet with sugar; usually sesame on top.
Youtiao 油条 (yóutiáo)	Long deep-fried dough stick	Wheat dough, fried in oil.
Cifantuan 粢饭团 (cífàntuán)	Sticky rice roll wrapped round a youtiao	Glutinous rice and youtiao, plus sugar, pickles or pork floss depending on the stall.
Doujiang 豆浆 (dòujiāng)	Soy milk, sweet or savoury	Soy. The savoury bowl has youtiao, seaweed, dried shrimp, spring onion and soy sauce.

Noodles

Dish	What it is	What’s in it
Scallion oil noodles 葱油拌面 (cōngyóu bànmiàn)	Plain noodles tossed in fried spring-onion oil and soy	Wheat noodles, spring onion, soy sauce, sugar. The fuller version adds dried shrimp (开洋, kāiyáng). Which fat is used varies; ask.
Shanghai cold noodles 上海冷面 (lěngmiàn)	Summer noodles with sauce and toppings	Wheat noodles; peanut sauce is a common dressing, so take care with peanut allergy.

Meat and fish dishes

Dish	What it is	What’s in it
Red-braised pork 红烧肉 (hóngshāo ròu)	Pork belly braised until soft and glossy	Pork belly, soy sauce, rock sugar, cooking wine, ginger, spices.
Shanghai “smoked” fish 熏鱼 (xūnyú)	Fried fish soaked in a sweet soy sauce; served cold	Freshwater fish, soy sauce, sugar, wine, ginger. Despite the name, it is not smoked. It has small bones.
Oil-fried river shrimp 油爆虾 (yóubào xiā)	Whole small shrimp, flash-fried and glazed	Freshwater shrimp in the shell, soy sauce, sugar, wine.
Drunken chicken 醉鸡 (zuìjī)	Cold chicken soaked in rice wine	Chicken and Shaoxing-style rice wine; served cold, so the alcohol is not cooked off.
Wine-lees dishes 糟货 (zāohuò)	Cold platters marinated in wine lees: chicken feet, pork, edamame, tripe	Rice-wine lees and wine. Contains alcohol.
Eight-treasure duck 八宝鸭 (bābǎo yā)	Whole duck stuffed with glutinous rice	Duck, glutinous rice, ham, chicken, pork, shrimp, chestnuts, ginkgo, mushroom, soy sauce, sugar, wine.
Yanduxian 腌笃鲜 (yān dǔ xiān)	Spring soup of salted and fresh pork with bamboo shoots	Cured pork belly, fresh pork or ribs, spring bamboo shoots, tofu-skin knots.
Hairy crab 大闸蟹 (dàzháxiè)	Steamed freshwater crab, in season in autumn	Crab, eaten with ginger and vinegar. A shellfish allergen. See Hairy crab in Shanghai.
Crab-meat tofu 蟹粉豆腐 (xièfěn dòufu)	Soft tofu in crab sauce	Tofu, crab meat and roe. Crab meat for these dishes is often cooked with lard.

Vegetable and tofu dishes

These are the dishes vegetarians usually reach for. Check them anyway: stock, lard and oyster sauce can hide in any of them.

Dish	What it is	What’s in it
Kaofu 烤麸 (kǎofū)	Spongy wheat-gluten pieces braised sweet with mushrooms and peanuts	Wheat gluten, so not for coeliacs; often peanuts and wood-ear fungus; soy sauce, sugar.
Vegetarian “chicken” 素鸡 (sùjī)	Pressed rolls of tofu skin, sliced and braised	Soy; soy sauce, sugar.
Stir-fried greens 炒青菜 (chǎo qīngcài)	The simplest safe order	Greens, garlic, oil, salt. Ask for no lard and no chicken powder.

Sweets and snacks

Dish	What it is	What’s in it
Qingtuan 青团 (qīngtuán)	Green sticky-rice balls sold before the Qingming festival in spring	Glutinous rice coloured with mugwort; sweet red-bean filling (savoury versions exist).
Sweet wine-rice balls 酒酿圆子 (jiǔniàng yuánzi)	Small glutinous rice balls in sweet broth	Glutinous rice, fermented rice (酒酿), often egg. Contains a little alcohol.
Crab-shell pastry 蟹壳黄 (xièkéhuáng)	Round flaky sesame pastry, named for its colour	Wheat, sesame, sweet or savoury filling. No crab. The pastry is traditionally made with fat that may be lard.

Quick checks before you order

No pork? Most dumplings, wontons, stocks and braises have pork. See Halal, kosher and other faith diets.
Vegetarian or vegan? Go for tofu, kaofu, greens and qingtuan, and ask about lard and stock. See Vegetarian and vegan in Shanghai.
Allergies? Wheat is in nearly every dumpling, noodle and soy sauce; shellfish shows up as dried shrimp and oyster sauce; peanuts and sesame finish many cold dishes. See Food allergies in Shanghai.
No alcohol? Avoid “drunken” (醉) and “lees” (糟) dishes, and ask for no cooking wine.