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Readers often ask where to eat in Hangzhou beyond Tangping Road, known for its concentration of Michelin Guide snack spots. Another rewarding place to wander is Damalong, an old-city lane that grew up at the foot of the Southern Song imperial precinct. Around the Drum Tower, its market life leads naturally into a cluster of six restaurants featured in the Michelin Guide, including a wonton shop where a filling meal starts at around RMB 15.
Damalong draws both residents and visitors and is often called Hangzhou's 'last roadside market'. It still keeps the old morning-market rhythm: stalls line both sides of the road, cash changes hands, and the lane springs to life at 6:30am. Just 200 metres long, it runs from Taimiao Lane in the south to Chenghuang Pailou Lane in the north, with an average width of less than four metres.
Shops already crowded the lane in the late Qing and early Republican periods. A century-old shikumen stone-framed doorway still bears the characters '豊记宏安茶行', the name of the old Feng Ji Hong An tea business. Today, roughly 30 to 40 traders sell seasonal vegetables, prepared Hangzhou dishes, handmade snacks and soy-braised or cured specialities.
For lovers of suyu, Hangzhou's richly seasoned fried fish, Jiang Ji Su Yu is an essential detour. Master Jiang has been frying it here for 23 years. His stall has moved from inside Damalong to the entrance of Chayuanqian Lane, but the cook remains the same. The fish is fried twice: high heat first to set its shape, then a gentler fry to cook it through. His seasoning uses 26 ingredients, four more than his old teacher's recipe.
From Damalong's northern entrance, Qinghefang Historic District is about a ten-minute walk away. Its name reaches back to the Southern Song dynasty. In the third year of the Jianyan reign, 1129, the general and grand preceptor Zhang Jun defeated Jin forces at Gaoqiao near Mingzhou. Later made Prince of Qinghe, he built his residence in Taiping Lane at the foot of Wushan, giving the surrounding area the name Qinghefang.
After the Southern Song established its capital in Hangzhou, the city built an imperial precinct extending nine li and an Imperial Street stretching ten li. Qinghefang stood where the imperial neighbourhood met that street. With court life in front and markets behind, it became an early commercial centre of old Hangzhou.
Trade continued through the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Many of Hangzhou's longstanding names are associated with these lanes: Hu Qing Yu Tang, Fang Hui Chun Tang, Wang Xing Ji and Zhang Xiao Quan. The Ming writer Xu Wei captured Wushan in a couplet: 'Eight hundred li of lakes and hills – who knows when this picture was painted? The hearth smoke of a hundred thousand homes gathers around these terraces.' A walk from Damalong into Qinghefang feels less like leaving a market for a sightseeing district than moving from one old lane into an even older, livelier network of streets.
The surprise, deeper in those lanes, is a group of six Michelin Guide restaurants tucked between stalls selling soy-marinated duck and shops making spring pancakes.
Address: 418 Zhongshan South Road, beside the Drum Tower
Hours: 6:00am-9:00pm
This bakery traces its roots to Xianqiao in Jinhua and a history of 140 years. It now has several branches, including this one beneath Hangzhou's Drum Tower. The bakers use naturally fermented old dough, beginning the proofing process at 3:00am.
The September 2026 feature lists spring-onion-and-pork buns, bamboo-shoot-and-pork buns, traditional shaobing flatbreads and soy milk at RMB 3 each. Even 1,000 buns a day, made with Jinhua's distinctive black-headed and black-rumped pig breed, are not enough to meet demand. In Xianqiao, a shaobing filled with a double-strand youtiao fried dough stick, alongside a bowl of savoury soy milk with ginger and spring onion, has been a breakfast standard for more than a century.
Address: 12 Sipailou, in the Shiwukui Lane neighbourhood
Hours: 6:30am-8:00pm
The original feature credits this little wonton shop with three consecutive years of Bib Gourmand recognition. In a space of just 20 square metres, the owner has spent ten years wrapping wontons. There are only two fillings, fresh pork and shepherd's purse, and none are kept overnight for sale the following day.
Fresh-pork wontons are listed at RMB 15-25, making it possible to eat well for little more than RMB 15. Hangzhou's wonton tradition prizes thin wrappers and fresh fillings. Here, the wrappers are rolled by hand until almost translucent, yet hold together in the boiling water.
Address: Shiwukui Lane
Hours: 11:00am-1:30pm; 5:00pm-8:30pm
A benchmark for Ningbo cooking in Hangzhou, Jiang Nan Yu Ge appears in the Michelin Guide. Its signature Ningbo-style zaogutou, pork on the bone preserved in fermented wine lees, is one of the specialities known as Xiangshan's 'three treasures'. Raw meat and bones are sealed with house-made wine lees and left to cure for three months. The resulting flavour is used to enrich steamed roe crab or yellow croaker.
Another classic is lion's-head pork meatballs cooked with dried yellow croaker. The fish's savoury depth works its way into the meatballs, and a spoonful of the hot broth releases a lingering aroma.
Address: 462 Zhongshan South Road
Hours: 11:00am-2:00pm; 5:00pm-9:00pm
This Anhui restaurant joined the Michelin Selected category in 2025.
Owner Taozi talks with unmistakable neighbourhood pride about six affordable Michelin Guide restaurants across the Ershisanfang lanes. Fermented mandarin fish and maodoufu, tofu with a fine coat of edible mould, are fundamentals of Anhui cooking. But the unassuming homestyle dishes are what keep people returning: pork braised with dried bamboo shoots and Jixi-style stir-fried glass noodles, full of wok aroma and made for eating with rice.
Address: 35 Hefang Street
Hours: 11:00am-2:00pm; 5:00pm-8:30pm
A longstanding Hangzhou-cuisine restaurant, Fu Yuan Ju has received Bib Gourmand recognition.
Its signature crispy pork intestines are crisp outside and tender within, carefully cleaned so the flavour stays clean. Chicken finished with hot oil, pumpkin coated with salted egg yolk and drunken shrimp are all familiar tastes of old Hangzhou. The source feature puts a meal at around RMB 60-70 per person, good value for a street as popular with visitors as Hefang Street.
Address: Zhongshan South Road, in the Qinghefang area
Hours: 6:30am-8:00pm
This Michelin Guide-listed dumpling shop serves pan-fried dumplings listed in the original feature at RMB 1 each: thin skins, crisp bottoms and firmly packed pork filling. With a bowl of soft tofu pudding or small wontons, the feature describes a satisfying meal for under RMB 10. The Zhongshan South Road shop is the original neighbourhood address, rather than a shopping-mall branch. Most people in the queue carry the shopping baskets of local residents.
For more ideas across the city, explore our Hangzhou travel guide.
Translated and adapted from Youjian Shitang (有间食堂), published on 27 September 2026. Photo source: Youjian Shitang / youjianst. Prices and opening hours follow the original feature; Michelin distinctions have been checked against the official 2025 Guide.