Travel Guide · Food · 02
Vegetarian & Vegan
China has one of the world's oldest vegetarian traditions, rooted in Buddhist temple cuisine. With a small amount of language prep, plant-based travel is effortless.
China has one of the world's oldest vegetarian traditions, rooted in Buddhist temple cuisine. With a small amount of language prep, plant-based travel is effortless.
素食 sùshí — more than a diet, a practice.
Chinese vegetarian cuisine (素食) traces back over a thousand years to Buddhist monasteries, where monks developed elaborate techniques to make vegetables, tofu, and gluten imitate the textures of meat and seafood. The result is one of the most sophisticated plant-based cuisines on earth — and a gift to travelling vegetarians.
In cities like Shanghai, Chengdu and Beijing, dedicated vegetarian restaurants serve temple-style banquet menus of 20+ dishes. In smaller towns, options are simpler but almost always present.
Dishes, restaurants, and reading menus.
Look for restaurants with 素 or 斋 in the name. Often a long, fixed menu of small dishes; expect mushroom broths, braised gluten, peanut-stuffed peppers, and a startling variety of tofu.
The classic mixed-vegetable dish — mushrooms, bamboo, ginkgo, daylily, tofu skin. Found in dim sum restaurants everywhere.
Ask for 素麻婆豆腐. Most Sichuan restaurants will prepare a vegetarian version on request — it is excellent and authentic.
绿 means green / vegetarian, 素 vegetarian, 全素 fully vegan, 蛋素 includes eggs, 奶素 includes dairy. A short show-card works wonders.
A few extra considerations.
Chinese cooking uses egg and dairy in unexpected places: many steamed buns are brushed with egg, many pastries contain milk solids, and bone broth is a common base. For fully vegan travel, ask explicitly for 全素 (vegan) and confirm the cooking oil is plant-based.
A printed card in Chinese explaining your needs removes ambiguity. We provide a standard one with every booking — or you can photograph the text from any translation app and show it at the door.
Tell us your dietary needs — we will pre-arrange menus at every retreat venue.