Mon/Thur/Sat/Sun at 9:30am, Duration 3.5 hours
$55 USD per adult, $28 USD per child
Approx. 3km walking
Known as the “Venice of the East,” Suzhou has over 35km of navigable canals and 60 of China’s most well-preserved gardens. On this walking tour, you’ll walk back in time while exploring Suzhou’s residential old-town, explore its lush gardens and monasteries, and discover what locals eat in the city that’s been the center of wealth and culture for 1,000s of years.
Far more than a meal’s worth of food and drinks at 5 sit-down restaurants, plus multiple cultural stops along the way.
Small groups of 2-8 people per tour.
Starts at Beisita Subway Station in Suzhou. Ends 10 minute walk away from Yangyuxiang Subway Station. An email will be sent with meeting location details immediately after booking.
Reservations cancelled 24 hours or more before your tour start time are fully refundable.
We can accommodate the checked dietary requests on this tour. All requests must be communicated at time of booking. Visit our FAQ section for more details.
This tour starts at Beisita Subway Station, located outside of the 800 year old pagoda that stands taller than any other building in Suzhou’s old-town. An email will be sent with meeting location details immediately after booking.
Suzhou locals have a daily morning ritual: drink tea, eat noodles, and listen to opera. This decades-old noodle joint is known for having the best broth in town, along with a huge selection of seasonal condiments served on small plates that lets the eater decide their flavor of the day.
For over 50 years, this family has been serving neighbors fresh silken tofu from their home, hidden deep inside a narrow alleyway – a labor of love that starts every day at 5am.
While walking our way through the alleys and canals that crisscross the city, we’ll visit Suzhou’s only Buddhist nunnery and explore a secret Ming-dynasty garden centered around 5 “peaks” and ornamental stones from nearby Taihu lake.
Situated just inside the city’s ancient gate, this street used to be the center of business for traders from the “Grand Canal” which connected north and south China. Today, it’s the best place to grab neighborhood snacks like fresh soy milk, local spring rolls, Chinese donuts, and pancake-wrapped dough sticks.
Eat at a famous “bubble wonton” joint, frequented by celebrities and neighbors alike, and try these delicately wrapped wontons that are magically filled with air and float atop a bowl of rich broth. You’ve never had anything like it!
End the tour at a dessert shop popular with today’s younger crowd. Try a subtly sweet soup made with slow-cooked red beans topped with chewy glutinous rice balls.
* This itinerary is subject to changes and adjustments based on daily vendor operations and availability, but it will always be awesome.
China’s “Grand Canal,” a 1,700km waterway that connects north and south China, lifted Suzhou’s status and opened it up to the rest of the country over 1,500 years ago. It soon became a dreamy utopia where China’s elite would retire, building their own courtyards with private gardens, and sustaining cultural sites with their well-funded pocketbooks. This made Suzhou a far more significant hub than nearby Shanghai and its sleepy fishing village.
Today, Suzhou remains a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and offers us a glimpse into this ancient capital of wealth and culture. On this tour, we’ll walk through centuries-old gardens and monasteries, try time-tested dishes served in humble eateries, and observe local life – all while winding our way through a network of canals and alleys that make up the heart of the ancient old-town.
A third of our customers were referred by a previous guest. Were you one of them?!
All dietary requests must be communicated at the time of booking. When booking online, you will have the opportunity to let us know if you have any dietary requirements or special requests. Please use the following information to understand if this tour is right for you.
This tour can accommodate vegetarian travelers, including those who are pescatarian and those who do not eat beef, pork, seafood, shellfish, and/or mutton. However, there will not always be direct substitutes for every dish that we try on the tour. For example, at our 3rd stop we order savory soy milk that has pork in it (a local specialty), and the restaurant does not provide any direct substitutions. Instead, we’ll order extra vegetarian items. Please note that every stop we visit during the tour does use meat in their kitchen.
This tour cannot accommodate vegan or gluten-free travelers. Wheat products are featured at every stop, in sauces like soy sauce and in tour highlights like noodle soup and wonton soup. There are no substitutes or alternatives available.
This tour also cannot accommodate severe allergies as we do not have control over the preparation for your food. Travelers that don’t eat nuts are welcome, but kitchens do use nuts and cross-contamination is possible.
If you have any questions not answered here, please contact us prior to booking.
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.
Like all our tours, come hungry, leave stuffed. You’ll be eating about 8 or 9 dishes across 5 food stops. Some courses are quite big, like a whole bowl of noodles, others are smaller – but never too small! It’s our professional recommendation to have a very very light breakfast before the tour to “open up” your stomach, and please pace yourself throughout the tour.
This is a walking tour; let’s just get that out of the way. This tour covers about 3 km/ 1.75 miles by foot, so we recommend leaving the heels at home. This distance is split up between 7 stops, so it’s roughly a 5-10 minute walk between each stop and a great chance to digest a bit before the next stop. Exploring by foot is the only way to experience Suzhou’s old-town alleys and canals, and to see local life up close.
Our child pricing is valid for ages 4 through 15. Children ages 3 and under are free.
The tour starts at 9:30am at Beisita Subway Station, which services line 4 in Suzhou. This is one stop away from the Suzhou Railway Station. You’ll get the exact address, directions, and transportation details immediately after booking.
The tour ends at our last stop, a 10 minute walk to Yangyuxiang Subway Station.
Our minimum is 2 and maximum is 8. It’s small enough to be intimate, but big enough to get away with trying several dishes at each stop. Bottom line is, you’ll follow the guide through a super-local experience and make friends along the way.
This tour lasts about 3.5 hours and ends in a small dessert shop. Most guests choose to continue exploring the area by foot for the rest of the afternoon.
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 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.
Yes! You’ll get a promo code in your confirmation email that will give you a 10% discount on all future Lost Plate tours. 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. Also, children ages 4 through 15 receive a discount on all tours (3 & under are free).
Bookings canceled 24 hours or more before your tour are fully refundable (100% refund). Bookings canceled within 24 hours notice are not refundable. If you would like to reschedule your tour with less than 24 hours notice, we will need to charge 50% of your total since we are unable to fill your spots at short notice.
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Suzhou Alleyway Food Tour
$55 USD/person
Email: info@lostplate.com
China & Cambodia Tours: +86 156 9210 9030
Portland Tours: +1 503 409 5593
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