Old Shanghai Breakfast Food Tour

Old-Shanghai Breakfast Food Tour

Daily at 9am

Duration 2 hours

$49 USD per adult

$25 USD per child 4-15

Approx. 30 minutes walking

The Essentials:

See how Shanghai locals start their day with some of the best breakfast China has to offer. Enjoy unlimited food and drinks and try at least 10 dishes on this walking tour of Old Shanghai’s local cuisine.

Stops

2 sit-down safe-to-eat restaurants, a handful of standing-only eateries, a wet market, and dessert.

Group Size

Small groups of 2-12 people per tour.

Start & End Location

This tour starts and ends at the Tilanqiao Subway Station. An email will be sent with detailed meeting location details immediately after booking. If you have time, we recommend visiting the nearby Jewish Refugee Museum after your tour.

Dietary Requirements

We are happy to welcome vegetarians, but please let us know prior to your tour date as same day requests cannot be guaranteed. This tour is not recommended for gluten free, vegan, or other special diets. Please message us prior to booking if you have any questions.

Book Now:

This tour is no longer offered, but we do have other tours in Shanghai available.

About This Tour:

In a land where breakfast is the most important meal, try over 10 items and see how locals in the biggest city in China start their day. Many of our favorite breakfast dishes are enjoyed throughout China, but we’ve only featured them on our Shanghai menu because they’re simply the best we’ve tasted. 

Shanghai’s history of migration has brought the best to this international city with household dishes like: scallion pancakes, jianbing (savory stuffed breakfast crepes), and sesame bread. The best news? They’re all within walking distance from each other, tucked away in historic old Shanghai.

Shanghai Breakfast Food Tour About
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What You'll Do:

Shanghai Breakfast Food Tour Veg Market

Walk through historic, tourist-free streets, alleys and markets to see how the locals live in China's biggest city.

Shanghai Breakfast Food Tour Scallion Pancakes

Try scallion pancakes; freshly rolled dough folded into layers with scallions. The result? Flaky, chewy, crunchy goodness that only a master’s technique can achieve.

Jianbing is a stuffed breakfast crepe so beloved it’s found everywhere in China (and beyond), and this one is hands-down the best we’ve had.

Shanghai Breakfast Food Tour Giant Potstickers

Shengjianbao: half crispy, half soft potstickers, described by one reddit user as “Xiaolong bao on steroids” and a journalist from the New York Times on our tour as “the best I've had.”

Shanghai Breakfast Food Tour Sesame Bread

Sweet Sesame flatbread, often stuffed with sweet fillings like red bean or black sesame, is the perfect accompaniment to fresh soy milk for breakfast.

Shanghai Breakfast Food Tour Temple Selfie

End the tour at a beautiful temple eatery for some sweet treats.

Featured In:

"The Best Dumplings I've Had"

Our guide started us off at a Buddhist temple with an adjacent vegetarian restaurant, then walked us through the former Jewish Ghetto, where 20,000 refugees lived during World War II. Winding our way through the nongtangs (old-fashioned alleyways) passing humble apartment blocks with European-style balconies, where I found the sheng jian bao of my dreams in a small storefront. They were fluffy on top, crunchy on the bottom and filled with savory, fatty juice.

Watch:

YouTube

This 12 minute, up-close journey of our Shanghai Breakfast Food Tour by YouTuber Luke Martin has over 200k views!

YouTube

Get a taste of our favorite stops in this family’s quest to find the best local food with Lost Plate.

Customer Reviews:

5/5

“I had the opportunity to experience multiple tours with Lost Plate in Chengdu, Xi’an, Shanghai (breakfast and evening). Each and every tour was unique and enjoyable. In the year of 2020, living as an ex-pat in China and visiting different cities, Lost Plate can feel like a local taking you around and giving you plenty of advice along the way. The guides all speak English well and are helpful, friendly, and excited to show you their city. Separately, the owners have a lovely small business passion and story behind their business and they continue to offer unique trips that are food and culture focused in China. They have a true passion for showing the amazing food of China.”

Pam

October 2020

5/5

“Even though I am quite familiar with Shanghai, I loved this tour!! With guides know all the local vendors, so you get that extra authentic feeling. The food is amazing and it is so great to be able to visit even the smallest food stalls and to be welcomed the way we were having our guide by our side. Definitely recommend having this tour, I feel like it is a way of showing appreciation to the neighborhood and its vendors. Just dive right in and let Lost Plate take you on a mouth watering tour through one of the remaining authentic parts of old Shanghai!

Nienke

April 2020

5/5

“Take a break from your coffee and donuts fare and do some walking in the morning to build up an appetite and load up on carbs. You will need it as you embark on an adventurous hidden side alleyways to taste what the locals eat. Our Guides Anis & Joy were fantastic in navigating us through the bustling side streets while dishing us knowledge in historical and regional food origins and the varieties of them all. We were transported back in time to see these old neighborhoods as they were when generations lived and still live there. Some foodie highlights included: scallion pancakes, sweet/spicy/crunchy savor crepes, sesame seed buns, pan fried dumplings, seasonal exotic fruits, soybean milk to chase it down with, & a traditional Chinese herbal medicine shop. Overall, a well planned tour that dives into culture and great interactions with the locals as we were all curious and learn about each other. Definitely will book another Lost Plate Tour in other cities throughout the region as they become available.”

Hank C

December 2019

5/5

“We did the breakfast tour with Lexie on our first day in Shanghai, and it was one of the highlights of our trip. Lexie was very accommodating of our young children, ages 4 and 6. We loved the food and getting to explore a part of the city that we would not have seen on our own. Note that we were able to manage the tour with an umbrella stroller, though had to fold it up at times.”

Emilia22m

October 2019

COVID Travel & Safety in China:

  • China is Open for Tourism: Effective March 2023, Chinese embassies around the world began re-issuing tourist visas for entry into China. Existing, valid, and unexpired visas, regardless of issue date, are also valid – as is visa-free transit in select cities. There are no quarantine or vaccination requirements in China.
  • Flexible Cancellation Policy: We have always offered one of the most flexible cancellation policies in the industry and that hasn’t changed. You are able to reschedule your tour or receive a 100% refund for all cancellations made at least 48 hours before the tour start time. Your reservations with Lost Plate are worry-free.
  • Symptom-Free: We ask that any guide or guest showing symptoms such as fever, cough, or shortness of breath, not join the tour out of respect for other guests and our vendors.
  • Masks: Masks are not required during the tour, but you will occasionally see locals wearing one in public. Free free to wear a mask if you prefer.

Frequently Asked Questions:

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.

You will get to try at least 10 different things on this tour! Food and soft drinks are unlimited, so you can get seconds if you like but we really do recommend pacing yourself as everything on this tour is delicious.

Our tours have been designed to accommodate as many diets as possible, including vegetarian, while still remaining stupid delicious, but please let us know prior to your tour date as same day requests cannot be guaranteed. This tour is not recommended for gluten free or vegan diets.

When booking online, you’ll have the opportunity to let us know if you have any dietary restrictions or special requests. Please use this field to let us know about your requests and we will follow up if there are any problems or questions.

Vegetarian or no-pork diets: Only one stop is not vegetarian friendly, however everything else has substitutions available.

This is a walking tour; let’s just get that out of the way. This tour covers about 2 km/ 1.25 miles by foot, so we recommend leaving the heels at home. This distance is split up between at least 7 stops, so it’s roughly a 5 minute walk between each stop and a great chance to digest a bit before the next stop. We also find that exploring by foot is the best way to see Old Shanghai, as you’ll get a chance to pass local residential lanes, wander through wet markets, and see Shanghai living at its most authentic. 

Our child pricing is valid for ages 4 through 15. Children ages 3 and under are free.

The tour starts at 9am at the Tilanqiao subway station which services subway line 12. You’ll get the exact address, directions, and transportation details immediately after booking.

The tour ends at the same station, which is also right next to the Jewish Refugee Museum. We recommend visiting the museum after the tour to discover a new side of Shanghai you might not have heard about. 

Our minimum is 2 and maximum is 10. There’s no flag to follow, or megaphone, or tacky uniforms. It’s small enough to be intimate, but big enough to get away with trying several dishes at each stop. You’ll get plenty of face-time with the experts. Bottom line is, you’ll follow the guide through a super-local experience and make friends along the way.

The tours usually last about 2 hours, depending on everyone’s pace, tastes, and interests – we try to personalize each tour as much as possible to the group.

All of our tours are rain-or-shine, so we suggest you dress for the weather. In rare cases of extreme weather, your guide will cancel the tour and provide a full refund.

Yes we do! If you would like to book a special tour for your organization or group, just contact us and we’ll take care of you.

We have many happy customers who do more than one of our tours in Beijing and across China! We have designed our tours to focus only on food from each city. This means that each dish, story, and vibe is unique to each tour and there aren’t any repeats.

Most people are very surprised how much the cuisine changes as they travel throughout China, and our tours are a good way to discover those differences. We encourage you to pick the tours that best fit your itinerary and we offer a 10% discount if booking more than one tour.

We sure do! If you decide to do more than one tour with us we are happy to offer you a 10% discount off your total amount. It doesn’t matter if the tour is in the same city or a different city, we want to keep feeding you as long as you let us. Our online booking system will automatically deduct the discount from your total if booking online at the same time. If you decide to add more tours later, your original confirmation email will include a promo code to use on those bookings. Also, children ages 4-15 receive a discount on all tours (3 & under are free).

Bookings cancelled 2 days (48 hours) or more before your tour are fully refundable (100% refund). Bookings cancelled within 48 hours notice are not refundable. Cancellations must be communicated by email to info@lostplate.com or by phone. If you would like to reschedule your tour with less than 48 hours notice, we will need to charge 50% of your total since we are unable to fill your spots at short notice.

Ask us anything,
we love a good question.

Old-Shanghai Breakfast Food Tour

5/5

$49 USD/person

Book Now

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