Dishing up dynasties

The lantern light flickers, casting dancing shadows on stone as a woman in elegant, flowing silks in the style of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) glides forward to greet guests at a palace-like restaurant in Jianou city, north of eastern Fujian province.

She recites a welcome in ancient verse before leading them through a luminous tunnel that evokes a feeling of traveling back in time to Jianzhou (established prefecture), Jianou's historical name a thousand years ago.

Before them, a panoramic LED screen, stretching an impressive 28.8 meters, unrolls like a living scroll, depicting the bustling markets, teahouses, and waterways of ancient Jianzhou.

It makes for a vivid opening to the Jianzhou Grand Feast, a 30-million-yuan ($4.2 million) immersive cultural dining spectacle that has, since its opening about three months ago, become a popular local tourist spot.

"We have been seeing a steady flow of visitors on weekends and holidays," notes Sun Ze, the restaurant's marketing director.

The restaurant taps into the profound history and culture of ancient Jianzhou, which has passed down the legacies of Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism and the Song Dynasty's Beiyuan imperial tea.

"Traditional cultural tourism often remains passive — it's static observation — but we think that enjoying food, something that is a common factor throughout history, can become the ultimate cultural medium," he explains.

"We wanted the weighty culture of Jianzhou to step out of the history books and become an immersive experience modern consumers can eat, see and participate in."

Nearly 1,500 kilometers to the northwest, in the ancient capital of Xi'an in Shaanxi province, a Tang Dynasty (618-907) scene also comes to life over the dining table.

Sun Ting, director of Fu Rong Yan Restaurant's seasonal aesthetic dining show, has witnessed similar robust demand.

"It is common to have our weekend shows fully booked a week in advance and we operate double sessions daily for lunch and dinner, since we launched over half a year ago," Sun Ting states.

In the neighboring Twelve Hours of Chang'an street, another Tang-themed dining performance, Joyful Banquet — Flourishing Tang, has staged over 1,000 performances and welcomed more than 100,000 domestic and international visitors since its debut in early 2024.

"We have consistently sold out tickets up to 10 days in advance during peak holidays, maintaining an average occupancy rate of 85-90 percent," says Han Ying, who is in charge of catering operations for the street.

Its customer base is varied, from out-of-town tourists drawn by its reputation to local culture enthusiasts fascinated by the Tang era, and Xi'an residents who choose it as a premier venue to host visiting friends and family, Han observes.

"Our guests aren't just coming for a meal, they are actually purchasing a cultural experience, the chance to cross time and spend a day as a resident in the Tang Dynasty capital of Chang'an," she explains.

These novel dining projects have been at the forefront of a shift in Chinese cultural consumption, where a meal is transformed into a multisensory portal to the past.

Data from earlier last year (2025) from the on-demand service platform Meituan show that searches for immersive shows and dining experiences have more than tripled year-on-year, with keen interest in cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, and Beijing.