Lunch at the museum!

During the 2026 Spring Festival holiday season, museums nationwide are once again buzzing with excitement, with reservation slots filling up instantly and long lines of people forming at entrances.

The holiday rush has seen some visitors head straight for the star exhibits, eager to secure the best view before the galleries fill up. Others, with shopping lists in hand, are making a beeline for the museum store to pick up souvenirs as they go. Meanwhile, a growing number of people are arriving for an entirely different reason: the museum's food.

Liang, a traveler from Beijing, has kept her holiday visit to the Hebei Museum focusing on two priorities. "I come for the national treasures — and a bowl of local specialty noodles," she said, referring to the wheat noodles topped with beef, a popular regional dish.

By lunchtime, the dining and retail area in the basement of the Hebei Museum is alive with visitors.

The bowl Liang ordered has an eye-catching feature: a steamed egg, shaped like the Changxin Palace Lamp, which was placed delicately on top of the noodles. "As soon as it arrived, my eyes went straight to it," Liang said. "It's like a little lamp sitting on the noodles — it feels like tasting a piece of history."

A young visitor nearby chuckled and added, "I came for the national treasures, but I didn't expect to be fed first."

The dish takes its inspiration from a nearby exhibit. The Changxin Palace Lamp, one of the most iconic treasures of the Hebei Museum, is a gilded-bronze artifact from the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24), over 2,000 years old. Shaped as a kneeling palace maid holding a lamp, it features an ingenious smoke-control design, with fumes drawn through a hollow sleeve and collected inside the figure. Its structure can also be dismantled into several parts, making it easy to clean the soot, showcasing both functional design and aesthetic beauty.

Li Kexin, a staff member at the Hebei Museum's art and design department, said the relic-inspired dishes were created to meet a practical need — giving visitors a place to eat after touring the galleries — while offering a more approachable way to share the stories behind the collection.

"Dining at a museum is part of the cultural experience," Li said. "We hope these dishes offer more than good flavor — that they can also serve as a more engaging way to share the stories behind our relics and heritage."

According to Li's observations, spending within the museum has increased during recent Spring Festival holidays, with more visitors opting to dine on-site and browse the gift shop.

Beyond the noodles, the Hebei Museum has expanded its relic-inspired menu to include mousse desserts, yogurt and coffee finished with latte art and other treats that carry museum motifs onto cookies, pastries, drinks — and even the tableware, Li said.

Highlighting a more enriching visitor experience, the staff member noted that the art and design department began with the relics themselves, drawing inspiration from their cultural significance, shapes, patterns, and decorative motifs to create new dishes and drinks.

This trend extends beyond the Hebei Museum.

Over 200 kilometers south, in Anyang, Henan province, the Yinxu Museum offers its own edible tribute to history: noodles imprinted with oracle bone inscriptions, one of the earliest forms of Chinese writing.

Yin Ruins, the remains of the late Shang Dynasty (c.16th century-11th century BC) capital, are best known as one of the principal archaeological sites where oracle bone inscriptions were unearthed. Printed in squid ink, each strand bears a different character. As diners finish the bowl, wishes for good fortune, prosperity and well-being are, quite literally, eaten.

The restaurant reports selling up to 500 to 600 bowls a day on weekends and holidays. On social media, one diner joked, "After this bowl, I've literally got culture in my stomach."

This witty remark highlights how ancient writing has made its way into everyday life — right at the dinner table.

Wang Peng, a researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said relic-inspired dish innovations are helping museums transform static symbols into immersive consumer experiences, shifting visits from simply looking at exhibits to actively engaging with them.

"This kind of crossover meets people's appetite for a more immersive cultural experience, while letting taste reinforce and deepen their connection with what they see," Wang added. "It keeps visitors in the museum longer, encourages repeat spending, and helps museums shift from purely cultural venues into more diversified consumer spaces."

Meanwhile, museum dining has become a powerful draw for visitors, also fueled by a buzzword young people often use: whether something is "instagrammable."

For many venues, buzz builds less around taste than around how irresistible the dishes look online. A single photo or short clip can showcase the design, colors and playful nods to famous artifacts, tempting viewers to add the spot to their itinerary long before they ever arrive.

At the Capital Museum, a horse-shaped mousse cake launched for the Year of the Horse soon started circulating on Xiaohongshu (Red-Note), a lifestyle-sharing platform. One blogger called it light and refreshing, with a bright passion-fruit tang and chunky blueberries in the filling.

The post quickly set off a chain reaction. Comments like "So pretty" and "I need this" poured in, followed by a flood of logistical questions: Which area of the museum sells it? What floor is it on? And what time should you show up for the best chance of getting one?

When online buzz spills into real life, a familiar ritual unfolds. The dessert arrives, hands hover for a moment, the tray is nudged into better light, angles are adjusted, phones come out for quick snaps — and only then is the first bite finally taken.

Xu Jing, a professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, said social media is reshaping the way young travelers are making consumption choices and, more broadly, transforming how people experience cultural spending today.

"Currently, when consumers are deciding where to travel or spend their free time, they often begin on social platforms like Xiaohongshu and Douyin," Xu said. "Posts about must-see sights, must-try food and popular check-in spots increasingly shape where consumers choose to go and spend."

Wang, the researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, added that this social media-driven dynamic goes beyond traditional marketing, allowing museum culture to reach a broader audience in a lighter, more accessible way and accelerating its move into mainstream consumer spaces.

Beyond novelty and social media appeal, a more down-to-earth reason is driving the popularity of museum dining: convenience and affordability.

Visiting a museum can be physically demanding, and having access to a hot meal on-site makes a significant difference — this is one common sentiment shared by many visitors.

Museums like the Sichuan Museum and Liaoning Provincial Museum have particularly benefited from offering tasty yet affordable food options.

At the Sichuan Museum, dishes in the canteen start at just 3 yuan ($0.42), with most priced between 3 and 12 yuan.

Meanwhile, the Liaoning Provincial Museum offers a meat and vegetable rice bowl for 22 yuan.

"Museum dining not only increases the time visitors spend at the museum, but also creates opportunities for additional spending," Xu said.

The growing foot traffic has expanded the possibilities of this new consumption experience.

The National Cultural Heritage Administration said museums across China welcomed 72.65 million visitors during the 2025 Spring Festival, with daily attendance rising by 12.84 percent compared to the previous year.

Compared to traditional cultural products like fridge magnets, dining is more closely connected to daily life and therefore has a greater ability to drive consumption. Professor Xu noted that dining, as a necessity good with a focus on experiences, has a higher rate of repeated purchases.

"You may not buy a second fridge magnet, but everyone needs to dine, and visitors come in waves," she explained.

"For museums, this makes food a stronger driver of sustained consumption."

Xu also highlighted that food can serve as a medium for culture. According to her, when cultural elements are incorporated into more everyday consumption experiences, visitors' understanding and connection to culture happen more naturally.

This approach, she explained, goes beyond simply "seeing" and "listening to the explanations," encouraging visitors to engage with and embrace the culture more organically in their daily lives.

The government's pro-growth policy push has set the stage for new consumer experiences in museums. In a bid to boost domestic demand and unlock untapped consumption potential, a joint initiative from nine Chinese central departments, including the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, encourages museums to open their collections and partner with external organizations to create innovative cultural and digital products.

"This collaboration will foster a collective ecosystem, broadening the concept and unlocking new possibilities for the development of cultural products," Xu said.

However, as more museums introduce similar relic-inspired menus, the initial innovations may lose their novelty, and audiences may become fatigued, thereby reinforcing the importance of having a solid and enduring cultural core value.

The focus should shift from one-off hits to creating compelling narratives — building a deep, vibrant story that can evolve over time. This will help develop cultural IPs or brands with lasting significance, said professor Xu.

"Beyond simply attracting tourists, museums should deepen their connections with local communities, gaining a deeper understanding of their cultural needs and consumption patterns to become an integral part of their daily lives," Xu added.

Zhang Chenxu and Li Kexin contributed to this story.