How to Find Great Restaurants in China - A Simplified Guide to Dianping and RedNote
🟠 Dianping • Step-by-Step Guide (2025 version)
⭐ Dianping is China’s most popular app for reviews and recommendations. Similar to Yelp.
1️⃣ Open WeChat + swipe down on the main page + use the search function in the top right corner + type in “Dianping 大众点评” to find the mini-program.
The icon is a stickman in white with an orange background. You can also use “Meituan 美团” which shares many of the same features but is less focused on ratings and reviews.
OR
download the separate app “Dianping 大众点评” if you have a Chinese number and access to the China app store (check if it’s available for your country’s app store first)
2️⃣ You may see a prompt asking if you want to switch the language to English. Click yes. If this does not appear, proceed to step 3 anyway.
3️⃣ Next, you may need to click the translation button - it may be called “Translate “ or “See Translation”. You may find this button by going to the right hand tab “My own” or “我的” along the bottom. Click the 3 dots next to the top right corner. A pop-up will show. The translation button “翻译” should be on the bottom row.
For the standalone app, you may already see the translation button on the left hand side of the screen.
If you skip this step, most of the content is likely to remain in Chinese. After this step, you should find it a lot easier to find the food you want. If you need to show it to a local person or the taxi driver, you can click the button again to change it back to Chinese.
4️⃣ Register with your number only if it forces you to and you want to continue. In some cases, you might not need to register if you are only browsing. You should not need a Chinese number. By registering, you will be able to save restaurants to favorites so you can easily find it again on your trip.
5️⃣ Your location should automatically be set - click the tab in the top left corner. If there is a pin next to the location, you already have location services enabled. If you’re not in China yet, forget about current location for now. Instead, select a city manually using the same dropdown. If you do not do this, you may not see anything pop up on the app.
6️⃣ On the main page, click the button for “Restaurants” or “美食”. You will be presented with a list of restaurants. Some of them will be near to your current location/selected city, others will be further away. You can see the distance in metres or kilometres. If you want to search for places further away in the city, you can filter by district or use the search bar to find restaurants in a specific location (e.g. 南京路步行街 = Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street).
7️⃣ Use the tabs along the top row to filter the restaurants and narrow it down to the options you want. You can also browse ranking tables for certain food types if you want to be inspired.
Word of advice: Don’t trust the ratings on Dianping too much, even if it seems super high. Read a few of the reviews and judge for yourself if it’s worth trying.
8️⃣ Each restaurant will have pictures of their menu items, taken either by the restaurant and by reviewers. You may need to click the content for it to be translated. The content is machine translated, so not all of it will make sense. If you like what you see, you can click the “star” button in the top right corner to save it to your favourites list. You can find your favourites list in the Profile tab on the main page.
9️⃣ To locate the restaurant, you can click the address on the restaurant’s page and a map with a pin will pop up. Use this for navigation.
1️⃣0️⃣ At the restaurant, you will usually be asked to order the usual way by scanning the QR code on your dining table. For smaller restaurants, you may need to point at pictures to staff.
If you have managed to register a Dianping account, you might be able to buy special offers/set meals on the restaurant’s page in Dianping, but it is not guaranteed to work. For large chains, you might be able to use the coupons inside the mini-app (as long as the phone numbers for both the Dianping account and WeChat app match). If this doesn’t work, you might need to communicate with the waiter to scan the coupon as part of your order.
1️⃣1️⃣ Pay for your meal through WeChat or Alipay as usual. See my full guide ➡️ How To Order Food and Drink in China - A Mini-Guide With Key Phrases (2025)
🔴 RedNote • Step-by-Step Guide (2025 version)
➡️ RedNote is a social networking app that provides another method to find restaurants. Obviously, recommendations by other people are subjective and not always reliable. Beware that some posts may be paid ads.
➡️ You can either search for restaurants by typing the name of the dish or by cuisine + location. The more specific you are, the more likely you are able to get the results you want. Searches do not normally take into account your present location.
➡️ My Take: Personally, I mostly use RedNote when I’m new to a city and need some suggestions for restaurants to try. Once I find a restaurant I’m interested in, I’ll find it on Dianping by copying and pasting its name and location, look at the dishes on offer, and read a few reviews to see if it’s worth going. This is the approach that works for me.
How to Search ->
Step 1️⃣: Type out the dish/cuisine + location. If you only know it in English, translate it into Chinese. If you only type in English, results may be limited.
Examples:
北京市的北京烤鸭餐厅 = Peking duck restaurants in Beijing city
四川火锅餐厅，成都 = Sichuan hotpot restaurants in Chengdu
Step 2️⃣: A grid of results will pop up. As long as you have the app setting in English, posts in Chinese should be translated after you click on them. If anything is still in Chinese, you can take a screenshot and use WeChat or a translation app.
Step 3️⃣: If you find a restaurant you like, copy the name of the restaurant in Chinese and paste into Dianping or Amap to locate it. Make sure you copy the entire name because some restaurants have multiple branches.
How to Write a Post ->
Step 1️⃣: Introduce where you are from (which will attract more attention) + ask in English OR ask in Chinese to get more answers from non-English speakers
Example:
我是澳洲人，能推荐一些重庆的火锅餐厅吗，谢谢！= I’m Australian, can you recommend some Chongqing hotpot restaurants? Thank you!
Step 2️⃣: Wait for people to comment on your post. If you don’t get many replies within 12hrs, you may need to be more specific as people may not have understood your post.
Step 3️⃣: Cross check restaurants against Dianping.
✴️ You can also use RedNote for other things such as places to visit and activities to do.
⚠️ NOTE: Please be aware that the apps mentioned are constantly being updated by the developers, so this guide may become outdated over time. Different app versions can show different things, but I’m doing my best to help people with this problem. Ultimately, I hope the developers can roll out the standalone app out to all app stores and provide a proper international version for people visiting China.
