These eight traditions offer a useful introduction to China’s regional food culture, but they are not a complete map of everything eaten across the country. In our video with Noemi Pelagalli of CookingWithTheHamster, we explore all eight through restaurants in Milan. Here, we look more closely at their origins, flavors, and culinary techniques.

Guangdong

Guangdong cuisine (Yuecài, 粤菜), universally known in the West as Cantonese cuisine, is undoubtedly the most famous and widely distributed Chinese culinary tradition in the world. Originating in the southern province of Guangdong and the regions of Hong Kong and Macau, it is considered the pinnacle of delicacy and balance among the eight great Chinese culinary schools.

The core philosophy of Yue cuisine is defined by a profound respect for the raw ingredients: the food must retain its natural, original flavor. For this reason, Cantonese chefs use spices very sparingly and almost entirely eschew fiery chili peppers.

Preference is given to methods that preserve nutrients, colors, and textures: steaming, quick boiling, gentle stewing, and rapid stir-frying at extremely high temperatures.

Flavors tend to be delicate, fresh, clean, and slightly sweet.

One of the best-known expressions of this approach is dim sum. Dim Sum is not considered merely an appetizer or a quick meal, but a fundamental cultural pillar. Literally, the term means “touching the heart,” signifying small delicacies prepared with such care and precision that they stir the emotions of those who taste them.

The experience of enjoying Dim Sum is inextricably linked to the ritual of Yum Cha, which literally means “drinking tea.” Traditionally, families and friends gather in large Cantonese tea houses to chat and read the newspapers, ordering a steady stream of steaming bamboo baskets accompanied by teapots of Pu-erh, Oolong, or Jasmine tea.

Jiangsu

Jiangsu cuisine (Su Cai, 苏菜) is one of China’s eight great culinary traditions and constitutes one of the four original “mother schools.” Originating from the wealthy coastal province of Jiangsu (bordered by the Yellow Sea and traversed by the Yangtze River) it is historically known as the “cuisine of scholars and emperors” due to its extraordinary aesthetic elegance and the sophistication of its flavors.

Su cuisine originates in a region abundant in lakes, rivers, and canals, often called the “land of rice and fish.” Jiangsu chefs are legendary for their knife skills. Ingredients are carved, filleted, or julienned into strips so fine they resemble silk threads, a technique essential for ensuring even cooking and artistic presentation.

The cuisine’s hallmarks are slow, moist cooking methods: slow stewing, light braising, simmering, and steaming. Premium broths are strained until crystal clear yet rich in deep umami flavor.

The food must be incredibly tender without falling apart. Meats should “melt in the mouth,” while vegetables retain a silky texture. Fresh, clean, and elegant, with a balance of savory and sweet notes. The goal is to preserve and enhance the natural essence of the primary ingredients, particularly duck, freshwater fish, crab, and fresh shoots.

Shandong

Shandong cuisine (Lǔcài, 鲁菜) is considered the oldest, most influential, and most technically demanding of China’s eight great culinary traditions. Originating in the northern coastal province of Shandong, it is historically the parent school that shaped the entire cuisine of northern China (including Beijing’s imperial cuisine).

Lu cuisine is robust, rich, and savory, relying on extraordinary technical skills, so much so that it is considered the most difficult cuisine for a Chinese chef to master.

The true secret of Shandong cuisine lies in its superior broths. Lu chefs are masters of stir-frying at extremely high temperatures for just a few seconds to seal in the meat’s juices and frying an ingredient and then quickly glazing it with a thick, starch-based sauce.

As a peninsula, Shandong boasts an immense variety of seafood (scallops, shrimp, mantis shrimp, sea cucumbers), paired with hearty land-based dishes featuring pork and offal.

Hunan

Hunan cuisine (Xiang cuisine, 湘菜) is undoubtedly the most fiery of China’s eight great culinary traditions. Originating in the south-central province of Hunan, it is historically renowned as the favorite cuisine of Chairman Mao Zedong, who maintained that “one cannot be a true revolutionary without eating chili peppers.”

Many Westerners tend to confuse Hunan cuisine with Sichuan cuisine because both are very spicy, yet the technical differences are profound. While Sichuan cuisine favors the numbing heat (Ma-La) created by combining chili peppers with Sichuan peppercorns, Hunan cuisine embraces pure, fresh, pungent heat (Gan-La) or a sour-spicy profile (Suan-La).

Xiang recipes rarely use whole dried chilies for aroma; they utilize fresh chopped chilies, pickled chilies, or chilies preserved in brine. The heat is direct, immediate, and searing.

To counter the region’s sweltering summers and humid winters, the people of Hunan have mastered the art of fermenting and pickling vegetables. Many dishes combine spiciness with a distinct, refreshing sour note.

Hunan is renowned throughout China for its meats and tofu, which are traditionally smoked outdoors. These ingredients lend an unmistakable, rustic depth of flavor to wok-cooked dishes.

The dishes are visually vibrant, featuring brilliant reds and greens, and key cooking techniques include quick stir-frying, clay-pot stewing, and steaming.

Zhejiang

Zhejiang cuisine (Zhècài, 浙菜) is one of China’s eight great culinary traditions. Originating in the coastal province of Zhejiang, located just south of Shanghai, it is renowned for its visual elegance, absolute freshness, and delicacy. It is often described as having a “romantic and poetic” character, as many of its dishes are linked to historical legends surrounding the famous West Lake in Hangzhou, the region’s capital.

Zhe cuisine is historically divided into four main regional styles (Hangzhou, Ningbo, Shaoxing, and Wenzhou). Its philosophy rests on a core principle: freshness, crispness, and meticulous attention to presentation.

The cuisine makes the most of the incredible abundance of freshwater fish from the lakes, the catch from the East China Sea, bamboo shoots from the hills, and local poultry. Overpowering flavors and the excessive use of fats are shunned. Cooking methods, primarily steaming, light braising, quick stir-frying, and stewing, aim to preserve the food’s original flavor, tender texture, and natural aroma. To add depth to dishes without making them heavy, the cuisine makes masterful use of the famous Shaoxing rice wine (for deglazing and marinating) and dark vinegar.

Every dish must be a feast for the eyes. Plating often mimics natural elements or landscapes, reflecting the artistic spirit of the Chinese literati who frequented the region.

Anhui

Anhui cuisine (Huīcài, 徽菜) is one of China’s eight great culinary traditions, representing the most rustic, wild, and earth-connected gastronomic school. Originating in the mountainous regions of southern Anhui, particularly around the magnificent, scenic Huangshan Mountains, it is a cuisine historically shaped by the lifestyles of merchants and mountain farmers, focusing on well-being and the healing properties of food.

Anhui cuisine is renowned for its masterful handling of cooking temperatures. Dishes are slow-cooked in earthenware pots, braised, or steamed for hours. This allows wild and tough ingredients to become incredibly tender and release all their juices into the broth.

Historically, Anhui merchants had to travel for months at a time. This created a need to preserve food through salting and light fermentation, techniques that today lend the dishes a deep, bold flavor and a unique aroma (often pungent to the nose but delicious on the palate). Flavors are intense, savory, salty, and rich, with extensive use of lard and local rapeseed oil to carry the flavors of the land. Spiciness is used only sparingly.

Fujian

Fujian cuisine (Min Cai, 闽菜) is one of China’s eight great culinary traditions. Originating in the coastal province of Fujian (in the country’s southeast), it is an extraordinarily refined cuisine characterized by light, fresh, and sweet-and-sour flavors (never greasy) with meticulous attention paid to the quality of ingredients.

Min cuisine is historically divided into several regional styles (including those of Fuzhou and Xiamen) and is built upon three key elements: sea and Mountain, soup culture, mastery of knife skills and flavor profiles (sweet-and-sour notes and clean umami).

Sichuan

Sichuan cuisine (Chuāncài, 川菜) is undoubtedly the most famous, exuberant, and widespread of the major regional culinary traditions, both within China and abroad. Originating in the southwestern province of Sichuan (a mountainous basin characterized by a foggy and highly humid climate) it is renowned for its bold, complex, and intensely aromatic flavors.

The profound secret of Sichuan cuisine is not spiciness for its own sake, but complexity. As the Chinese saying goes: “Each dish has its own character; a hundred dishes offer a hundred distinct flavors.”

Ma-La is the region’s signature hallmark. It arises from the union of the searing heat of chili peppers (Là) and the electric, numbing sensation (Má) caused by Sichuan pepper (which is actually the berry of a type of ash tree). This combination slightly numbs the tongue, allowing one to perceive the dish’s other flavors without being overwhelmed by the heat.

The aromatic backbone is Doubanjiang, a thick, salty paste made from fermented broad beans, salt, and fresh chili peppers, aged in large earthenware jars for one to five years.

An authentic Sichuan dish constantly plays with a combination of seven flavor profiles: spicy, numbing, sour, sweet, bitter, salty, and aromatic. Dishes often swim in flavorful red oils, infused at low temperatures with spices (cinnamon, star anise, black cardamom) to extract color and aroma without burning the ingredients.