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Issue No. 4531 Author | Restaurant Owner Insider Insider Jun
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Regional &#34;Local Cuisine&#34;
Has Become the &#34;Queue King&#34; of Business Circles
In a shopping mall, having more than 10 local cuisine restaurants has become the norm. Local cuisines are experiencing an unprecedented boom. Moreover, local dishes have jumped to become the main force in queues within malls.
Yongshang Mingzao, as the &#34;Queue King&#34; local cuisine restaurant in Ningbo, has multiple branches that consistently experience long queues, with waiting times during peak hours reaching 1-1.5 hours; the Fujian Hakka local cuisine Sifang Table has deeply cultivated core cities like Fuzhou and Sanming, opening over 30 stores.......
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The so-called local cuisine is essentially &#34;originating from the countryside, loyal to the original flavor&#34; home-style dishes, emphasizing the authenticity of ingredients and flavors.
The rise of local cuisine restaurants actually started with Hunan local dishes. Hunan brands like Tian Xiaogou Restaurant and Xiang Chao Fresh Meat Union Factory have seen a surge in popularity, with Nong Geng Ji opening 79 stores, and various Hunan local cuisine brands appearing in malls across the country. Data shows that from Q2 2024 to Q2 2025, the number of Hunan local cuisine restaurants increased by 169% in just one year.
Subsequently, brands like Shazi Local Cuisine and Chen Jia Wei Local Cuisine in Anhui, as well as Huang Ai Ecological Restaurant and Ye Man Chef • Pingxiang Local Cuisine in Jiangxi, have also gained popularity. From Hunan local cuisine, Hefei local cuisine, to Ningbo local cuisine, and Fujian Hakka local cuisine... the once-hidden local flavors are now fully entering the mainstream dining market in a branded, chain, and mall-oriented manner.
According to data from Qichacha, as of now, there are 116,000 local cuisine-related enterprises nationwide.
The store data of these popular local cuisine restaurants is also impressive. The 600㎡ Shazi Local Cuisine can achieve a monthly revenue exceeding 1 million yuan; the 1000㎡ Chen Jia Wei Local Cuisine restaurant has a monthly revenue as high as 3 million yuan.
What’s even more noteworthy is that high-end dining has also set its sights on local cuisine, using &#34;refined local cooking methods&#34; to create dishes, such as the Beijing Rosewood Hotel launching a series of Zhanjiang dishes. Local cuisine is no longer synonymous with cheap home-style dishes; instead, it has become a new medium for the dining industry to express quality and uniqueness
From roadside small shops to mall mainstays, from local flavors to nationwide hits, local rustic cuisine is ushering in its golden era.
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Local Rustic Cuisine,
is undergoing an &#34;aesthetic upgrade.&#34;
When rustic cuisine enters malls, it is no longer the rough &#34;rustic&#34; but rather a redesigned, refined version of &#34;rustic.&#34;
The explosion of rustic cuisine is not just a return to flavors but the result of a complete upgrade in experience. As Xu Xun, founder of the Huichef brand, stated: &#34;The rise of Hefei's rustic cuisine has happened in the past year or two, accompanied by changes in the external consumption environment and a round of concentrated upgrades in dishes, environments, and services by rustic cuisine operators.&#34;
The most intuitive change is the refinement of the spatial environment.
Previously, rustic restaurants mostly had a &#34;farmhouse-style&#34; rough aesthetic, while current rustic restaurants have completed an aesthetic upgrade in various styles.
For example, the restaurant Tian Xiaogou adopts a pastoral nostalgic style. The interior displays old tables and chairs, vintage thermos bottles, with local dialects written on the mud walls, and farming tools like buckets and baskets placed in the corners, creating a strong rural atmosphere.
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This style has also attracted many rustic cuisine brands to imitate, placing original ecological ingredients and local specialty ingredients in the restaurant lobby to create a sense of &#34;rustic&#34; locality and comfort.
In the past year, more brands have followed the trend of Bistro and wilderness styles, combining local cultural characteristics to create restaurants. For instance, Jingdezhen cuisine Hu Qia integrates Jingdezhen porcelain aesthetics to create a forest-themed space.

Nonggengji·Hunan Rustic Cuisine has launched the first concept store in South China at the Futian Link City Center, with the concept of &#34;bringing the mountains and forests into the CBD,&#34; creating a dining environment reminiscent of a green fairy tale.
From pastoral nostalgic style to Bistro and wilderness styles, rustic cuisine has kept up with the new consumption wave, transforming from &#34;rustic flavor&#34; to &#34;rustic trend&#34; to meet the current consumers' high-quality dining experience demands. This also aligns with the current competitive thinking in the catering industry, enhancing aesthetics and experience from dishes to environment.
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Stir-fried and Ingredients:
The True Soul of Local Cuisine Breaking the Circle
Compared to becoming &#34;beautiful,&#34; &#34;stir-fried, freshly killed, freshly picked&#34; is the most powerful label for local cuisine restaurants.
The underlying logic behind the explosive popularity of local cuisine is the rising demand for ingredient quality from consumers. Research shows that the frequency of dining out has decreased year-on-year, but the amount spent per visit has increased. This &#34;less but better&#34; consumption model reflects a significant rise in consumers' expectations for fresh, made-to-order ingredients and a rejection of pre-prepared foods for health reasons.
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A number of popular local cuisine restaurants have precisely hit the market pain points: emphasizing the source of ingredients, adhering to the craft of fresh preparation, and restoring the bustling atmosphere of local life.
In terms of ingredient control, well-known local cuisine brands all adhere to the principle of &#34;direct supply from the origin,&#34; locking in freshness from the source and preserving authentic flavors.
Xiao Ma Ge, the owner of Local Cuisine Research Institute, controls ingredients in the most &#34;clumsy&#34; yet effective way. He gets up at 4 a.m. every day, drives to the morning market around Zhuzhou, and directly purchases freshly caught river seafood and free-range mountain chickens from local farmers; Sifang Table sources all its ingredients from self-operated farms and contracted farmers, with Hakka Changting river free-range chickens raised in the mountains for 110 days, without inducing maturity or feeding with additives; Xiang Chao Fresh Meat Union Factory sources raw materials from rural farms, never selling materials that have been stored for over 28 hours.
Essentially, local cuisine can transform from street-side small shops into mainstays in shopping malls, relying on the bustling atmosphere brought by &#34;stir-frying&#34; and the quality supported by &#34;high-quality ingredients.&#34; In a time when consumers are becoming more mature and increasingly demand quality products, this is the true confidence behind local cuisine breaking the circle.
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Cultural and Tourism Support,
Another Growth Pole for Local Cuisine
In the current highly competitive dining market, relying solely on taste has become difficult to break through. The composite model of &#34;scene + experience + culture&#34; is becoming a new growth pole in the restaurant industry. Local cuisine is naturally deeply tied to regional culture.
Since 2025, this trend has become particularly significant, with the counter-cyclical growth of culturally integrated dining bringing tangible results to many local cuisine brands.
For example, Chunhao has collaborated with the Nanchang Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism to become the core brand of &#34;Nanchang Food Check-in Spot,&#34; receiving over 100,000 tourists during the peak travel season in 2025, boosting the check-in rate for Nanchang Gan cuisine by 20%.
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For example, Tian Xiaogou's restaurant has become a must-visit spot for tourists due to its authentic Hunan cuisine, with related topics on Xiaohongshu exceeding one million views. This not only drives foot traffic to the store but also promotes the dissemination of Liuyang's regional culture.
The average size of these cultural tourism integrated restaurants is generally between 1,000 to 3,000 square meters, far exceeding the standards of traditional dining, yet the revenue per unit area has not been affected; instead, it continues to rise. The space has also become a carrier for cultural expression. Many restaurants incorporate intangible cultural heritage elements, folk performances, and handicraft experiences, turning a meal into a cultural journey.
This model not only enhances the consumer experience but also extends the consumption chain. Consumers may purchase regionally related cultural and creative products or experience other cultural activities as a result of a dining experience.
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The &#34;Regional Destiny&#34; of Local Cuisine
The breakout of local cuisines across various regions reflects the comprehensive demands of consumers regarding aesthetics, ingredients, and cultural expression. This personalized demand also makes it difficult to mass-produce.
Last year, the well-known Hunan cuisine chain &#34;Eating Emperor&#34; closed all its stores in Shanghai. The sudden exit of this brand from Shanghai surprised many consumers. In fact, this is not an isolated case but a microcosm of the obstacles faced by local cuisine brands in expanding nationwide in recent years.
Restaurant brands that gained popularity through the &#34;local cuisine&#34; label are gradually revealing overlooked issues as traffic diminishes and market competition intensifies.
First, the success and challenges lie in the ingredients. The uniqueness of local cuisine primarily relies on locally sourced ingredients. However, transporting these ingredients nationwide poses the biggest challenge for the supply chain. The cost of fresh transportation is high, and finding substitutes with a similar taste at the store's location is difficult to replicate the original flavor.
Second, the misalignment of cost structure and first-tier markets. Local cuisine emphasizes &#34;cost-effectiveness,&#34; but entering first-tier business districts requires bearing high rents and labor costs. To maintain profits, many brands may raise the average spending per customer or cut ingredient costs, which inevitably blurs brand positioning.
Finally, severe homogenization and insufficient brand cultivation. Many local cuisine restaurants initially attract consumers with the concepts of &#34;local&#34; and &#34;wild,&#34; but they lack the ability to continuously narrate regional culture. Once the novelty wears off for consumers, if the store does not have deeper cultural expression and product differentiation, its competitive advantage will quickly disappear.
Focusing on the region and creating small but beautiful brands may be the best destination for local cuisines.
Local cuisine brands that enter business districts through differentiated paths must continuously iterate on experiences and products to retain consumers and meet the demands of shopping centers; otherwise, they will ultimately be eliminated.
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Rotating Editor | Trudy Dai
Visuals, Illustration | Zhang Jinying Operations | Xuegao

Local cuisine is rapidly rising in commercial areas, becoming a popular choice for queues. The outbreak period for regional cuisines has arrived, especially with the surge in popularity of Hunan local dishes, leading to a significant increase in the number of stores. There are now 116,000 local cuisine-related enterprises nationwide, with some local restaurants achieving monthly revenues of up to 3 million yuan. High-end dining is also beginning to pay attention to local cuisine, launching refined dishes. Local cuisine is undergoing a transformation towards branding and commercialization, becoming a new highlight in the restaurant industry

Local dishes from various regions dominate the commercial center's C position