Shanghai Food Tours

Eat like a local, not like a tourist, on Shanghai's most-loved food tours through the French Concession.

Our Shanghai Food Tours:

This tour explores the city’s dynamically evolving French Concession neighborhood while visiting the trendiest cafes alongside traditional street-food vendors and longstanding local restaurants.
8:30am Daily

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3 Hours

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Walking Tour

Get 10% off if you book multiple tours online!

Step Into Shanghai's French Concession.

Where east meets west (and soup dumplings meet trendy cafes), this neighborhood is a perfect mash-up of colonial-era mansions and quiet noodle joints hidden in alleyways.

Why Guests Choose Us:

Explore Shanghai's French Concession Like a Local on a Lost Plate Shanghai Food Tour

Explore Shanghai's French Concession Like a Local.

We don’t just feed you – we walk you through one of Shanghai’s most historic and charming neighborhoods. Guests love how we blend food with storytelling, saying the tour gave them “a deep understanding of Shanghai’s history, daily life, and hidden gems.”

Hidden Eats You'd Never Find Alone.

From crispy-bottom dumplings to scallion oil noodles and pork belly that melts in your mouth, our tours highlight Shanghai’s iconic and off-the-radar dishes. Guests say they “went back to the same places the next day” because the food was that good – and impossible to find without us.

Shanghai Food Tours Hidden Eats You'd Never Find Alone.
Local Shanghai Guides That Feel Like Friends Shanghai Food Tours

Local Shanghai Guides That Feel Like Friends.

Our guides are passionate Shanghainese locals who love their city and its food. Guests have called our guides “fun, knowledgeable, and the highlight of the experience,” often mentioning how it felt more like “dinner with friends” than a typical tour.

Come Hungry & Leave Full (and Then Some).

This is not a tasting tour. Guests rave about the generous portions and variety – plus dessert and a local beer to finish. One reviewer summed it up best: “We were more than full before we even got to dessert, and I already want to do it again.”

Come Hungry & Leave Full on Shanghai Food Tours

Customer Reviews:

Don’t just take our word for it – read recent reviews from our guests.

As Featured In:

"The Best Dumplings I've Ever Had"

Lost Plate Food Tours Featured in New York Times

"All about the food, Bourdain would have loved it."

Beijing Hutong Evening Food Tour Featured on Washington Post

Frequently Asked Questions:

These answers apply to our morning/evening city food tours. For details and policies about our multi-day trips, please click here.

We’re proud to offer one of the most flexible cancellation policies in the industry. Cancel or reschedule your tour at any time, for any reason, up to 24 hours before your tour starts for a full refund. If you prefer even more flexibility, you’ll be given the option to add last-minute cancellation protection for a small fee when booking online.

Our morning/evening food tours include all food, drinks (including local beer during evening tours), and your local guide. There’s nothing you need to pay during the tour other than an optional gratuity for your guide if you would like to show your appreciation.

…signing up for multiple tours? Yes! When booking online, you’ll have the option of adding additional tours to your booking with a 10% discount. Additionally, you will receive a confirmation email immediately after booking with a 10% promo code that you can use when booking any additional tour(s) in any city.

…bringing children? Yes! Humans aged 4 through 15 will receive a discount on our Beijing Evening Food Tour (3 and under is free). The discount is automatically displayed and given when booking online. We do require that all guests aged 4+ pay for their spot, even if you don’t think they will eat a lot, due to limited seating space during the tour. 

…I don’t drink alcohol (or coffee)? No. For tours that include alcohol or coffee, we always provide alternatives of similar value for guests that prefer to drink something else. 

…I have special dietary requirements / I can’t eat everything? No. Due to limited capacity on each tour, all guests must pay for their spot. We think the tour experience is about more than just the food. If you are unable to eat everything on the tour, feel free to share your portion with your travel partner or other guests. 

We require full pre-payment to reserve your spot on one of our food tours. This is because spots are limited and we can’t risk no-shows which will delay the start time for other guests. When booking online, credit cards from any country are accepted. If using a mobile device, ApplePay/GooglePay are also available.

Humans of all ages are welcome on our food tours. We ask parents to use their own judgement to determine whether a 3-4 hour walking tour is appropriate for their children without impacting the experience of other guests. Booking a private tour for your family is always an option by contacting us. We offer both morning and evening tours, so you can choose what best fits your children’s schedule. Our morning tours typically provide more interactive experiences, whereby our evening tours typically visit sit-down restaurants. 

Private tours can be arranged based on availability. An additional private tour fee will be charged (which is waived for larger groups). Simply contact us to book so we can check availability. 

We are happy to customize the start time or duration for private tour requests.

Beyond that, we generally do not arrange customized tours. We work very hard to create our tour routes and build strong relationships with our vendors to ensure the food quality and service they provide. It’s also important for us to share the stories of each dish and vendor that we visit. If your request involves visiting a vendor we don’t have an existing relationship with, we will politely decline. 

We are not a tasting tour, we provide much more than a full meal’s worth of food so we recommend you come prepared to eat. We are just tickled by the share of reviews we get that warn other guests to pace themselves. Even our guide training covers tips and tricks for guests to pace themselves.

We also provide unlimited bottled water and soft drinks (plus local beer on our evening tour).

Yes! We do our best to accommodate as many dietary requests as possible while remaining stupid delicious. Each tour is a bit different, so please check the specific tour page that you are interested in, where we have clearly displayed the dietary requests each tour is able to accommodate. Check out the tour page’s FAQ section for even more detail. 

Yes! Our online booking system will cut-off evening tours around 2-6 hours before it begins, or 24 hours for our morning tours begin. If you’d like to book a tour that’s already been cut-off, simply contact us and we’ll get you taken care of (based on availability).

No problem! Due to the higher cost of providing a solo tour, we do require a minimum of 2 people to operate a tour. Our website will accept your solo booking, and we’ll reach out to you if you are the only person booked on the tour. If we are unable to reschedule you to another date that works for you, we will provide a full refund for your booking. At that time, you can also consider purchasing 2 tickets so we are able to operate the tour for you.

Feel free to contact us at any time if you’d like us to check your dates of interest and we’ll let you know if anyone else has booked the tour or if there are nearby alternative dates.