Online influencers shape food scene
Social media has seen a slew of budget eateries take Shanghai’s diners by storm
With two wanghong food businesses — an ice cream parlor and a dumpling house — under his belt, 38-year-old restaurateur Lu Xiaoxun says he has no idea what makes either an internet sensation, the literal translation of the term.
Lu also says that having hundreds of people lining up for hours for an ice cream cone or a cup of cheese-foamed tea is not something the food and beverage industry should be happy about.
“It means people have smaller food budgets, and are becoming less patient. None of the wanghong restaurants we have been talking about this year are fine dining,” said Lu, who now runs four restaurant brands in Shanghai, including a food chain offering Shanghai snack food that is recommended by Michelin Bib Gourmand.
Gloomy as Lu sounds, his ice cream parlor, which offers such creative flavors as salty egg yolk and Chinese rice wine, brought him upward of 400,000 yuan ($60,820) a month this summer, twice the annual income he used to be paid when working as a lifestyle editor for magazines.
New trend
In a city that boasts the first Michelin Guide in the Chinese mainland and attracts an increasing number of celebrity chefs and fine dining brands, the trend that defines Shanghai’s culinary scene in 2017 is indisputably the rise of wanghong restaurants.
There is no clear definition of a wanghong restaurant or food, it can be of any type of cuisine in any style. But some key words and phrases are associated with it — novel, tantalizing, popular and, perhaps most importantly, easily shared on social media.
Some enjoy such popularity that the country’s supposedly most sophisticated diners will skip work, wait for up to seven hours, or pay scalpers two or three times the price of the food just for a taste. Two of the most notable names are Heytea, which is known for its cheese-foamed tea and Master Bao, which sells bread topped with meat floss.
Cafe culture
A report from dianping.com, China’s largest restaurant listing website with 250 million users and 28 million stores around the country, showed that cafes and dessert shops account for more than half of the food business tagged as wanghong on its website. Western cuisines and Cantonese food came second and third. The website said 74 percent of its users are young people aged between 20 and 35 years old.
“Like it or not, we have to admit that it’s the power of social media. In an age when everyone can take pictures and post them online with their own opinions, the way a restaurant becomes known has completely changed,” said Gao Yan, a Shanghai food writer whose independent WeChat account, foodie at heart, is one of the most influential in the city with 300,000 followers.
She lamented that as diners are increasingly obsessed with taking pictures, many restaurants are focusing on presentation and design.
Generating clicks
Lu, who wrote about food and wine for five years before becoming a businessman, believes it also suggests a decline in the use of the Chinese language and the media.
“Many Chinese food writers today are incapable of producing a decent restaurant review. So when they are deprived of the possibility of using words like ‘the best’ or ‘the most delicious’ (because of advertising laws introduced in 2015), saying something is sensational online seems the easiest and most click-inviting solution,” Lu said.
Austin Hu, an Americanborn
restaurants
Chinese chef who has been involved in the city’s restaurant business for more than one decade, thinks the wanghong frenzy is just a reflection of growing social media usage and its increasing effect on consumption habits.
“Ultimately, quality speaks for itself. If a store is wanghong but no good, you quickly see them lose steam after a month or two,” said Hu, who now runs two restaurants, Madison Kitchen and Diner, in Shanghai.
Changing tastes
Ms Zhao Needs No Reservation, one of the city’s earliest wanghong restaurants, which was opened in 2013 by a local celebrity couple, closed in October.
Offering fusion food and marketed as a wedding anniversary gift from Na Duo, a science fiction writer, to his wife, Zhao Ruohong, a TV host, the restaurant had six outlets at its peak and was an offline meeting place for the couple’s millions of followers on Sina Weibo.
In a Sina Weibo post in December, Zhao said the business closure simply reflected a shift in their lives, as she is preoccupied with a new shoemaking venture while her husband wants to focus on writing.
“I don’t get it. Since when is
Digital drivers
Q: Why do you think there are so many people going crazy about
restaurants? Is it about food or something else? And why Shanghai and 2017?
A:
losing money the only reason to terminate a business?” she said in her post.
According to a report released by Meituan, China’s top group deal site, in 2017, first tier cities like Shanghai and Beijing saw 10 percent of their restaurants close every month.
“I think the trend of wanghong is dying. Consumers are gradually becoming immune to the word. For 2018, both the media and the restaurant industry need a new term or trend to get consumers excited,” Lu said.
Lu is planning to open a pop-up store of his ice cream parlor in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, and a new soup dumpling (xiaolongbao) brand that he thinks will appeal to young people — which means a traditional snack served in a trendy atmosphere with slightly higher pricing.