48 Hours in Guiyang: Discovering the Far More Than Just "Sour and Spicy" Wonders of Guizhou Cuisine

A fusion dish featuring Litsea cubeba oil and Kaili red sour soup jelly

When it comes to Guizhou cuisine or its delicacies, what first comes to your mind?

Is it a bowl of wild goat bile or a pot of rich sour soup from the deep mountain Miao villages? A plate of oily, fiery stir-fried tender chicken topped with fragrant and spicy sticky chili peppers? Or the prestigious Mid-Autumn gift from Guizhou Provincial Hospital—mooncakes? Or perhaps, on the refreshing city streets, a gentle yet hearty bowl of lamb rice noodles or Changwang noodles?

Spicy chicken, sour soup fish, fermented black bean hotpot.

Photo by Chen Weihong, Duoduo

Guizhou is low-key, and for many outsiders, its food often seems distant, mysterious, or even unfamiliar. But in fact, on China's culinary map, Guizhou cuisine is like a taciturn master with profound depth. Those fortunate enough to experience its essence are often left with an unforgettable impression.

Because of this, in recent years, in forward-thinking megacities like Beijing and Shanghai, Guizhou cuisine has become a hidden treasure for seasoned foodies and a trending taste sensation among the sharpest young crowds. For example, Junqinhua, a humble Guizhou-style eatery in a Beijing alley, draws crowds willing to queue for hours under the scorching sun for its white sour soup. Guifeng Huang, located in Beijing's bustling CBDs, has even made many young people who've never been to Guizhou addicted to its rice noodles. Meanwhile, in Shanghai's Sinan Mansions, Guizhou cuisine is transformed into avant-garde creative dishes—reverse spherification red sour soup paired with tuna belly, Dushan shrimp paste sauce with beef—leaving even the most discerning palates awestruck by the flavors of colorful Guizhou.

Fig. 1: Guifeng Huang rice noodles; Photo by Wu Xuewen

Fig. 2: Junqinhua's white soup pork trotters. Photo by He Shushu

Meanwhile, in Guizhou itself, especially in the provincial capital Guiyang, "Guizhou cuisine" is rapidly evolving and fusing. More and more local premium flavors are being systematically refined and elevated. On the other hand, Guiyang's urban food scene is no longer limited to local fare. The city's alleys hide not only upscale French and Japanese cuisine but also countless cutting-edge boutique coffee shops deeply integrated with the city's fabric—Guiyang has long become a pioneer of trendy gastronomy, offering endless surprises to satisfy every food explorer.

Photo by Chen Weihong

If you observe the creative Guizhou restaurants that have opened in Shanghai in recent years, you'll notice that despite their diverse forms and avant-garde techniques, their flavors are always rooted in Litsea cubeba, sour soup, chili paste, and local Guizhou fruits or meats. This means these elements' unique flavors are universally recognized by world-class chefs as the essence of Guizhou cuisine.

Twelve Mountain Residence restaurant, local Guizhou ingredients in the kitchen.

Photo by Chen Weihong

Litsea Cubeba: The Underrated Treasure Spice

Litsea cubeba is a unique Guizhou spice with a crisp, elegant flavor, like a hidden path leading the palate to an instant revelation. At Shanghai's fine-dining restaurant "Fall Into," it's sprinkled on grilled zucchini; at "Entaoli" in Sinan Mansions, fresh Litsea cubeba tops eel and pork wrapped in sausage casing. Seasoned Guizhou natives instantly recognize its familiar, nostalgic taste, while newcomers are stunned by its lightness and sharpness.

Courtesy of Fall Into restaurant

In Guiyang, Quanshang restaurant serves a signature dish—Litsea cubeba roast duck. A fatty local duck is marinated with Litsea cubeba and other spices, air-dried overnight, and then smoked with fruitwood. The spice's aroma lingers on the crispy, rich duck skin, leaving the mouth fragrant and refreshed. Compared to Beijing's trendy caviar-paired roast duck, this version instantly outshines it.

Quanshang restaurant, Litsea cubeba roast duck.

The goblet also contains a sauce blended with Litsea cubeba oil.

Photo/Chen Weihong

Apart from being ground into spices, Litsea cubeba can also be used to extract oil. The perfect partner for Litsea cubeba oil is the white sour soup, the most primitive, mellow, and cleanly fermented among Guizhou's many sour soups. Traditionally, this sour soup comes from the fermentation jars found in every household of Miao villages in southeastern Guizhou. The yeast responsible for its flavor has often been passed down for centuries within these villages. When guests arrive, a pot of white sour soup is ladled out, a fresh fish from the rice paddies is cooked, and only a bit of salt and Litsea cubeba oil are added. Beneath the light fragrance of Litsea cubeba lies the infinite richness and sweetness of the sour soup, with countless subtle aftertastes lingering on the palate, gently stimulating salivation... To Chef Song of Quan Shang Restaurant, this time-honored, clean, and mellow fermented flavor of white sour soup is the most commendable aspect of Guizhou cuisine.

The white sour soup at Quan Shang Restaurant. Chef Song of Quan Shang,

introduced yeast from farmers' homes in Huangping, southeastern Guizhou,

maintains the soup in the restaurant, refreshing the rice broth every three days,

resulting in the now endlessly flowing, exquisite sour soup.

In fact, across all creative Guizhou cuisine restaurants in China, white sour soup and the red sour soup fermented with wild tomatoes and chili peppers are the focal points for chefs. At the Fall Into restaurant in Shanghai, sour soup jelly is paired with salmon and distilled jasmine flowers as a cold dish. Meanwhile, charcoal-grilled Ningxia滩羊 (Tan sheep) trotters are slow-cooked in a pot of red sour soup... In short, the uniqueness of sour soup's flavor is almost universally acknowledged by chefs, and its pairing ingredients are by no means limited to fish. Whether it's delicacies from land or sea, heaven or earth, all seem to shine with a special brilliance in the rich flavors of sour soup.

Photo/Fall Into Restaurant

Sour soup is just the most prominent representative of Guizhou's unique fermented flavors. Another, more luxurious fermented ingredient is Moutai liquor. For instance, Chef Song once used a fermentation vat from the Moutai distillery to roast ten free-range chickens and ten jin of pork intestines. When the lid was lifted, the aroma wafted for miles and lingered endlessly. In Guiyang and Guangzhou, a restaurant named Jiu Shuo specializes in cooking with Moutai liquor. One dish, Moutai-braised garlic chicken, involves drizzling a small amount of Moutai onto the sizzling lid of a clay pot just before serving. Flames leap up, instantly filling the room with the aroma of the liquor, stunning diners with its olfactory impact before they even take a bite.

Photo/Jiu Shuo Restaurant

Fermented black beans are another important source of Guizhou's fermented flavors. Traditionally, fermented black beans are considered an earthy,平民 food, especially the sticky, pitch-black "fermented bean paste" made by sun-drying water-fermented beans with various spices. It’s often regarded as Guizhou’s most "dark" cuisine. While it adds an incredibly rich aroma to hot pot, diners often need to wash all their clothes afterward... Yet, this "stinky" fermented bean paste has caught the attention of chefs for its potential as a high-end flavor. At the elegant Twelve Mountains Residence in Guiyang’s forest park, a chef tops a plump abalone with a lump of fermented bean paste. The pungent, savory paste and the abalone’s restrained richness clash and meld explosively during chewing, creating an unparalleled experience no other sauce could deliver.

Twelve Mountains Residence, Bijie fermented bean paste-braised abalone.

The Fusion Journey of Guizhou’s Chili Cuisine

Beyond fermented flavors, another marvel of Guizhou cuisine lies in the locals’ unique understanding of chili peppers. For example, the smoky aroma of柴火糊辣椒 (charred chili peppers) has won over many chefs. Chef Song of Quan Shang, inspired by Sichuan’s boiled beef, created a signature dish, "Charred Chili Beef," which is wildly popular. Jiu Shuo Restaurant tops steamed Dafang stinky tofu with charred chili peppers...

In my opinion, the most remarkable among Guizhou’s chili dishes is zao la jiao (fermented chili paste). This deeply fermented chili can elevate any stir-fry with its profound flavor, whether it’s a simple bowl of fried rice with minced meat and fermented chili or an exquisite plated dish pairing fermented chili paste with high-quality seafood or beef. Zao la jiao never fails to deliver immense surprises, embodying the pinnacle of Guizhou flavors.

Quan Shang Restaurant, stir-fried minced meat with fermented chili paste.

Speaking of beef, a little-known fact: most of the beef served in Chaoshan’s牛肉火锅 (beef hot pot) restaurants, widely regarded as China’s best beef eaters, actually comes from Guizhou. Guizhou’s deep mountains and rivers produce exceptionally生态 and high-quality ingredients. Premium食材 is, in fact, the most fundamental and crucial reason for the recent rise of Guizhou cuisine. Hei猪肉 from Weining,娃娃鱼 raised in Tongren’s mountain springs, bamboo-related ingredients like赤水’s bamboo fungus, bamboo fungus eggs, and bamboo tripe, as well as刺梨,蜂糖李, and织金红托竹荪 (a type of mushroom)... No matter where these ingredients go or how they’re cooked, they always yield stunning dishes.

Dendrobium flowers, bamboo fungus, and local mushrooms at Twelve Mountains Residence.

How Trendy Is Guiyang’s Food Scene?

When outsiders visit Guiyang, the usual routine is to seek out肠旺面 (noodles with pork blood and intestines),丝娃娃 (spring rolls), and恋爱豆腐果 (grilled tofu). But only true gourmets know that inside a sales office by the Huaxi River lies an incredibly refined Fine Dining French restaurant. Its professionalism even justifies traveling from anywhere within a 500-kilometer radius just for a Western meal in Guiyang.

How impressive is the resume of this French restaurant, Yunqi? Its owner and head chef, Harry, spent a decade managing Michelin-starred restaurants at a top luxury casino hotel in Macau. Its French executive chef, Frederic Quemin, with 30 years of culinary experience, won the 2014 Kings Of Chef competition and trained under the legendary French Michelin three-star twin chefs Jacques & Laurent Pourcel. Such credentials are nearly unmatched across the entire southwestern region.

Beyond offering the most authentic Western cuisine for purists, Harry and his culinary team also possess a deep understanding of Guizhou's local flavors. In Harry's view, all high-end flavors share a common underlying logic. For instance, he compares the most exquisite flavor in Guizhou cuisine—fermented chili paste—to Tabasco sauce in Western cuisine. This perspective of observing and blending Guizhou flavors through a Western lens has brought many stunning additions to the restaurant's menu.

The litsea cubeba (mountain pepper) used by Chef Song to marinate roast duck is seen by the Yunqi team as particularly suited to pair with premium raw ingredients. French dishes always have long yet understated names, such as "Cured Hokkaido Scallop Carpaccio, Litsea Cubeba Oil, Kaili Red Sour Soup Jelly, Oscietra Caviar." The dish features Hokkaido scallops, renowned for their freshness and high harvesting difficulty, thinly sliced to uniform thickness using the South American ceviche technique. The scallops are then quickly marinated with a touch of litsea cubeba oil, extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, New Zealand Manuka honey, salt, and black pepper, and paired with Kaili red sour soup jelly. One bite delivers the scallop's natural sweetness intertwined with the complex yet light flavors of litsea cubeba and sour soup, creating a lingering, crystal-clear aftertaste that offers diners an entirely new understanding of seafood.

Cured Hokkaido Scallop Carpaccio, Litsea Cubeba Oil, Kaili Red Sour Soup Jelly, Oscietra Caviar

Photo by Chen Weihong

Guizhou's fermented black beans are also favored by the Yunqi team. One standout dish, "Halibut with Fermented Black Bean Cream Sauce," has become a beloved classic on the menu. The Icelandic halibut fillet, seasoned with salt and pepper, is pan-seared and paired with a sauce made from locally sourced wet fermented black beans (rinsed three times), shallots, white wine, cream, soybean oil, lemon juice, sesame paste, and soy sauce. The rich, fatty fish and the complex, intense fermented bean sauce create an indescribably delightful flavor. After trying this dish, I find myself longing for that "stinky yet fragrant" fermented bean aroma whenever I eat similarly hearty seafood.

Photo by Chen Weihong

Yunqi's desserts, infused with local flavors, are equally stunning. For example, the "Fermented Rice Pudding" blends local fermented glutinous rice with pudding, topped with golden sugar crisps, molecular mango and water chestnut pearls, and a jelly made from Huaxi organic strawberries. The already refreshing summer pudding, combined with the slightly rustic charm of fermented rice, feels both familiar and novel—gentle yet sophisticated.

This French restaurant is just one example of Guiyang's international-caliber dining scene. In fact, Guiyang locals are truly spoiled for choice—this cool mountain city hides countless world-class restaurants. For instance, if you're a serious Japanese cuisine enthusiast, you can enjoy premium purebred Wagyu at Guiyang's Wagu Restaurant, where ingredients, cooking, and service rival those in China's first-tier cities.

Fig. 1-2: Guiyang, Xiang Kaiseki Cuisine.

Jerry, the owner of the Japanese restaurant "Xiang Cuisine," has a more localized vision for Japanese food. In his view, Guizhou's culinary culture—rooted in rice-based agriculture and a love for rice, fish, and fermented soy foods—shares a foundational structure with Japanese cuisine. Thus, he enthusiastically experiments with incorporating Guizhou elements into Japanese dishes.

For example, the chicken used in his yakitori shop is locally sourced, and the sauce isn't the traditional Japanese sweet-spicy blend but a bolder, more complex Guizhou-style spice mix. He also has a soft spot for fermented chili paste. One of his signature dishes features yellow croaker paired with fermented chili sauce—an 8-liang fish, lightly coated and fried to crispiness, served on a base of red sour (fermented tomato) and fermented chili paste. The natural umami of the fish and the fermented aroma of the chili create a harmony that makes one marvel at this mountainous culinary treasure.

Before arriving in Guiyang, I’d heard it was one of China’s best coffee cities outside of Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Yet walking its streets, the density of coffee shops still far exceeded my expectations—each unique in style and size, leaving me momentarily overwhelmed. Fortunately, I was guided by Xiaojia, a local coffee aficionado, whose first stop was a tiny café called "Wujie" in the Future Ark area.

Photo by Chen Weihong

At first glance, "Wujie" is unassuming, but its owner, Qianghua, is a heavyweight—a sensory judge and head judge for multiple regions in the China Brewers Cup from 2018 to 2023, and a nationally renowned coffee sensory expert. In Guiyang’s coffee circles, she commands great respect, and her coffee reflects an elegant, bright profile that feels like a breath of fresh air. A standout is her Cucumber Tonic Iced Americano, which might even make you wish Guiyang’s weather were hotter.

Wujie Coffee, Cucumber Tonic Americano.

Qianghua shared her take on Guiyang’s coffee culture: life here is slow-paced, and shop rents are relatively low. In other cities, many open cafés purely as a business or struggle with profitability. But in Guiyang, for many, running a café is a lifestyle—they pour their passion into it, invest in top-tier equipment, and treat each cup and their shop as a life-defining endeavor. With more such beloved spots, a virtuous cycle of specialty coffee thrives.

A haven for enthusiasts: White Rise Coffee Training.

Photo by Chen Weihong

In fact, this sensory master hiding in a humble street-side shop is just one of Guiyang’s many heavyweight "coffee hermits." The city also boasts several "champion cafés," whose owners have won world-class brewing and roasting competitions. Countless coffee lovers from across the country even make pilgrimages to Guiyang just to meet these "coffee gods."

Xiao Jia took me to an old office building. After waiting a full ten minutes for the elevator, I arrived at a hidden coffee workshop run by Bai Qi, a former national latte art champion. In the small office space, he and his apprentices from across the country bustled behind a long counter. The atmosphere was entirely different from the relaxed comfort of the coffee shops we usually visit. I realized I had stumbled into a world belonging to hardcore enthusiasts—a unique subculture hidden in Guiyang.

Captain George’s coffee roasting factory.

Photo/Chen Weihong

The influence of champion coffee isn’t limited to out-of-town enthusiasts coming to Guiyang to "learn the craft." Guiyang’s champion coffee shop, Captain George, primarily operates as a coffee bean roasting factory. Their champion-quality beans are carefully packaged and shipped nationwide, ranking among the top sellers on e-commerce platforms in China. Before this, I could understand this low-key mountainous province mass-shipping Lao Ganma chili sauce across the country, but the sheer volume of coffee beans being sent out completely颠覆了我的认知.

Captain George’s coffee roasting factory.

Beyond these high-profile "champion shops" with impressive resumes, the true essence of Guiyang’s urban coffee culture lies in its small neighborhood cafes.

Take Seekseeking, tucked away at a corner of a long alley halfway up a hillside. The owner, Xiaolong, is an insurance salesman who still lives a "double life"—selling insurance in the morning and making coffee in the afternoon. His coffee philosophy is simple and direct: "Good coffee shouldn’t be so expensive." His coffee is exceptionally high-quality yet costs just over ten yuan per cup. Xiaolong often collaborates with event organizers to offer premium beans as treats for his customers... Despite being open only six hours a day, the shop’s reputation has grown thanks to its unbeatable value, even revitalizing the alley to some extent.

Seekseeking coffee.

Seekseeking’s space is tiny, and with business booming, the owner is constantly busy behind the counter. Whether regulars, first-time visitors, or enthusiasts, everyone quietly sits by the roadside or inside sipping coffee before moving on. Here, coffee returns to its purest form—a refreshing, delicious drink, a fleeting spark of lightness in ordinary lives... As a long-time Beijing office worker, I might have access to better coffee, but it’s nearly impossible to find the same unhurried, welcoming atmosphere as in Guiyang.

Seekseeking coffee.

Finally, we visited Puyu Coffee, a small shop nestled in a residential area near Jiaxiu Tower. It was once a struggling courier station until Pan Pan took over the space three years ago to open her cafe. Friends doubted her, calling the neighborhood "lifeless," but to everyone’s surprise, locals quickly fell in love with the place. Silver-haired elders, students, and middle-aged professionals in bureaucratic-style attire all stop by for a cup.

Behind the tiny counter, Pan Pan has watched babies grow from being cradled to toddling, and strangers become friends. Elderly residents bring thermoses to buy coffee, schoolkids drop by daily for iced Americanos, and a neighbor’s little dog always stops in—looking displeased if dragged away too soon...

Photo/Chen Weihong

Pan Pan is fiercely individualistic—she only uses dark roast beans and never extends her hours for anyone. Yet the neighbors have adapted to her quirks. Regulars who find her too busy will tactfully leave and return later. Now, this tiny space has become a hub of warmth and kindness, revitalizing a once-"lifeless" street. It turns out many people’s hidden tenderness just needed a small outlet to bloom.

By now, we can conclude: Guiyang, long known for its cool climate, is actually unhurried, comfortable, and brimming with包容心与年轻化的能量. Every new trend seems to find fertile ground here, blossoming in ways that suit the local spirit. What we’ve seen is just the tip of the iceberg—this city holds countless more delights waiting to be discovered.

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