Updated 2026-07-31
Food delivery in China operates at a scale and speed that has no equivalent in the West. A meal arrives in under thirty minutes, delivery costs three to six yuan, and the choice includes everything from a two-yuan bowl of noodles to hotel-quality banquet dishes. For a traveller it is genuinely useful — for a late arrival, a rainy evening, or the day you simply cannot face another restaurant menu you cannot read.
There are two dominant platforms. Meituan is the larger, with more restaurants and better coverage in smaller cities, but its standalone app is entirely in Chinese and requires a Chinese phone number. Ele.me is owned by Alibaba, which means it sits inside Alipay as a mini-app — and that is the route a visitor should take.
Open Alipay, search for Ele.me or look for the food delivery icon in the services grid. Because you are inside Alipay, your address, payment and identity are already handled — there is no separate registration, and payment goes through your bound card automatically.
The mini-app is still largely in Chinese, which sounds like a blocker but is not, for a simple reason: it is a visual interface. Restaurants have photos, dishes have photos, prices are in numerals. You can order competently by looking at pictures, and use your phone's screenshot translation for anything ambiguous.
This is the part people assume is impossible and it turns out to be easy. A few techniques cover almost everything.
The logistics here trip up most visitors, because Chinese delivery convention assumes the rider brings food to a residential door, and hotels handle this differently.
Most hotels do not let delivery riders past the lobby. The rider will call your phone when they arrive — and if you do not answer a Chinese-language call, or the number is your foreign number that they cannot dial cheaply, the order can stall. The fix is simple: set the delivery address as the hotel and add a note in the order asking the rider to leave it at the front desk. Chinese platforms all have an order-notes field, and 放前台 means leave at front desk.
Then simply go down to the lobby when the app shows delivered. Hotel front desks in China handle a constant stream of guest deliveries and know exactly what to do — this is completely routine for them.
Set the address by dropping a pin on the map rather than typing, and check the pin is on the correct building — large hotels sometimes have multiple towers and the default pin can land on the wrong one.
Delivery in China is cheap in a way that surprises most visitors, because rider density is high and platform competition is fierce.
| Item | Typical price |
|---|---|
| Bowl of noodles or rice dish | ¥15–30 |
| Two-dish meal from a proper restaurant | ¥40–70 |
| Bubble tea or coffee | ¥10–25 |
| Delivery fee | ¥3–8, often waived |
| Fruit, water, snacks from a shop | Same as in-store + ¥5 |
The delivery platforms are not restricted to restaurants, and this is where they become genuinely useful for a traveller rather than merely convenient.
You can order from pharmacies, which matters if you get a cold or an upset stomach and do not want to navigate a pharmacy counter in Chinese — search for the medicine type and order by photograph. You can order from supermarkets and convenience stores, which is how to get bottled water, fruit, snacks or an umbrella to your room in twenty minutes. Some platforms also deliver from department stores and electronics shops, useful for a forgotten charger.
One practical note on pharmacies: bring a photo of the packaging of any medicine you use at home. Chinese pharmacists and delivery listings both work far better from an image than from a description, and brand names differ entirely.
Worth knowing because it catches people out: in a great many Chinese restaurants you do not order from a waiter at all. There is a QR code on the table, you scan it, a menu opens in your phone, you select dishes, pay, and the food arrives. No one comes to take your order and waiting for them to do so can mean a long, confusing wait.
The table menu is usually Chinese-only, and the same techniques apply — screenshot translation, order by photo, filter by popularity. If a restaurant's QR menu genuinely defeats you, mime scanning and then show the staff a translated note asking for a paper menu; most places still have one.
One custom worth knowing: dishes in a Chinese restaurant are shared, not individual. Ordering one dish per person is normal and everything goes to the middle of the table. Rice is ordered separately and is not automatically included.
Overseas app stores are full of copycat clones with the same name. Every link below has been checked against the official developer.
⚠️ Chinese interface only. Easier path: use the Meituan mini-program inside Alipay and let your phone translate the screen.
⚠️ China's Yelp — read real reviews and photos before you commit to a restaurant.
⚠️ Developer must read “Alipay (Hangzhou) Technology”. Foreign cards work via the built-in Tour Pass / TourCard.
⚠️ Install and download the offline Chinese pack BEFORE you fly — it needs a VPN inside China, but offline mode works without one.
Yes, through the Ele.me mini-app inside Alipay, which uses your existing Alipay identity and bound card. The standalone Meituan and Ele.me apps do generally require a Chinese number, which is why the Alipay route is the one to use. Add a note asking the rider to leave the order at the front desk so a missed phone call does not stall it.
Broadly yes. Platforms display each restaurant's hygiene rating and licence, and orders are sealed with a tamper-evident sticker. Stick to restaurants with a high rating and a large order count, which is the same rule locals use. As anywhere, be more cautious with raw dishes and cold seafood than with anything cooked hot and delivered quickly.
No. Tipping is not customary in China, including for delivery, and riders are paid per order by the platform. There is no tip field in the checkout flow. If a rider was genuinely helpful, a five-star rating in the app is worth more to them than cash, because ratings affect their order allocation.
Use the order-notes field, but do not rely on it for a serious allergy — notes are read quickly in a busy kitchen and cross-contamination is not well understood in most Chinese restaurants. For a genuine allergy, carry a translated allergy card, order simple single-ingredient dishes, and prefer restaurants where you can see what goes in. Peanut oil and sesame are extremely common and often unlisted.
Later than almost anywhere else. Major cities have substantial 24-hour delivery availability, and in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Chongqing you can order hot food at three in the morning without difficulty. Selection narrows after midnight to noodle shops, congee, barbecue and convenience stores, but it does not disappear. This makes delivery genuinely valuable for jetlag.
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Our team of China travel researchers combines on-the-ground contributor insights, official government sources, and traveler community feedback to create the most detailed English-language China guides available. Every guide is fact-checked against primary sources (NIA, 12367, official attraction websites, Railway 12306) before publication.