What Is Cantonese Cuisine? A Guide to China's Yue Cooking

Cantonese cuisine, also called Yue cuisine (粵菜 yuht choi), is the cooking of Guangdong province in southern China and of Hong Kong and Macau. It is one of China's Eight Great Cuisines, and the one most people outside China met first, carried abroad by generations of Cantonese emigrants. Its guiding idea is freshness: the best ingredient, cooked briefly and seasoned lightly, so it tastes most like itself. From that idea come its signature methods: gentle steaming, fast wok-frying with wok hei, glossy roast meats, long-simmered soups and the small plates of dim sum.

Freshness above everything

The Cantonese word that sums up the cuisine is 鮮 (xiān in Mandarin, sin in Cantonese). It means fresh, but also the clean, sweet savouriness of something at its peak: a just-caught fish, a crab still heavy with roe, greens picked that morning. In Guangdong's markets, and in the tanks of Cantonese seafood restaurants around the world, fish and shellfish are kept alive until they are cooked.

That respect for the ingredient shapes the seasoning. Where other regional cuisines reach for chili, numbing pepper or deep fermentation, Cantonese cooks usually choose ginger, scallion, a splash of light soy sauce, a little Shaoxing wine, perhaps a pinch of sugar to round things out. The aim is balance, a dish that tastes clean rather than loud.

Steaming and the art of restraint

Steaming is the purest expression of that philosophy. A whole fish, steamed for just a few minutes, then dressed with shredded ginger and scallion, hot oil and seasoned soy, is the dish by which many Cantonese families judge a kitchen. The flesh should barely come away from the bone, still translucent at the centre.

The same method runs through dim sum. Har gow (蝦餃 hā gáau), the translucent shrimp dumpling, depends on a wrapper thin enough to show the pink prawn inside and a filling steamed only until it snaps. Steamed spareribs with black bean, rice rolls and chicken feet all come out of bamboo baskets stacked over boiling water.

Wok hei and the heat of the wok

If steaming is restraint, the wok is fire. Wok hei (鑊氣), literally "the breath of the wok", is the smoky, slightly charred aroma that comes from tossing food in a very hot, well-seasoned wok over a roaring flame. It cannot be added later; it exists for a few minutes after the food leaves the pan, which is why Cantonese diners like stir-fried dishes brought to the table at once.

Beef chow fun, fried rice and stir-fried greens are the classic tests. Each grain of rice should be separate, each ribbon of noodle lightly seared, each leaf glossy and still crisp.

Siu mei, soups and dim sum

Three other traditions define everyday Cantonese eating.

• Siu mei (燒味). Roast meats hung in the windows of Cantonese barbecue shops: honey-glazed char siu, roast duck with lacquered skin, and roast pork belly with a crackling top layer. At banquets, whole roast suckling pig takes the place of honour.
• Slow-cooked soups (老火湯 lou fo tong). Literally "old fire soup", these are simmered for hours with meat, bones, dried ingredients and seasonal vegetables. Many Cantonese families still serve a pot at dinner, and the recipes change with the seasons.
• Dim sum (點心). Small steamed, baked and fried dishes served with tea in the ritual known as yum cha (飲茶). What began in Guangzhou teahouses became a weekend institution in Hong Kong and, later, in every city with a Cantonese community.

Guangzhou, Shunde and Hong Kong

Cantonese cuisine is not one city's cooking. Guangzhou, the provincial capital, has long been its centre; an old saying holds that "for food, go to Guangzhou" (食在廣州). The city's teahouse culture gave the world much of what we now call dim sum.

Shunde, a district in nearby Foshan, is often described as the home of Cantonese chefs. It is known for fish dishes, delicate dairy desserts such as double-skin milk (雙皮奶), and many famous cooks. UNESCO designated Shunde a Creative City of Gastronomy in 2014.

Hong Kong took those traditions and refined them, adding seafood banquet cooking, luxurious ingredients and influences from around the world. From the 1980s and 1990s, immigration from Hong Kong helped shape the Cantonese dining scene in Vancouver, which is why so much of the city's Cantonese dining has a Hong Kong accent.

The wider Cantonese tradition also includes Chiu Chow (Teochew) and Hakka cooking, each with its own character, from Chiu Chow dumplings to Hakka salt-baked chicken.

Cantonese cooking at Neptune Palace

At Neptune Palace, in Vancouver's Marine Gateway and at The Amazing Brentwood in Burnaby, these traditions shape the menu from morning to night. Dim sum is house-made and steamed to order, from Neptune Shrimp Dumplings (har gow) and Shrimp & Pork Siu Mai with Flying Fish Roe to Rice Rolls with Dried Scallop & Dried Shrimp. At our Vancouver location, Cantonese barbecue, including Honey-Glazed Char Siu, Cantonese Roast Duck and Crispy Roast Pork Belly, is served daily from 10am to 3pm, and the evening menu brings out the seafood side of the cuisine with dishes such as Lobster with Chen Village Rice Noodles in Premium Soy. At both locations, several of our set and wedding menus include a steamed live fish, the Cantonese test of a kitchen. Neptune Palace Vancouver is listed in the MICHELIN Guide. Come for dim sum or dinner; for larger tables, call ahead to reserve.

Questions, answered