With the municipal government’s high-priority commitment and the full support of the China Cuisine Association, Quanzhou has been honored as a UNESCO certified “City of Gastronomy.” For Worldchefs, this milestone is especially meaningful. The China Cuisine Association, our respected national member, has demonstrated how a chef association can collaborate strategically with local government to drive sustainable development through food. Their success offers a powerful case study in how culinary organizations can champion culture, community, and creativity. It is aligned with Worldchefs’ own UN-focused initiatives on sustainability, heritage preservation, and food as a force for positive change. Read below to learn more:
UNESCO officially announced on its website on 31 October that Quanzhou has been admitted to the Creative Cities Network as a City of Gastronomy, becoming the seventh city in China to receive this prestigious title. The achievement is the fruit of the Quanzhou municipal government’s high-level planning and vigorous promotion, as well as the professional and fully support of the China Cuisine Association. Together, they have struck a fresh note in taking Chinese culinary culture to the world.
Since launching its bid for the UNESCO “Creative City of Gastronomy”, the Quanzhou municipal government has elevated the campaign to a strategic engine for cultural continuity and sustainable urban growth. A dedicated task force has been assembled and a road map unveiled to inventory the city’s culinary assets—Minnan classics, diaspora flavors and centuries-old Maritime Silk Road foodways—while integrating them with tourism, intangible heritage and local industry, laying a robust foundation for the bid.
The China Cuisine Association (CCA) has brought its full professional weight to bear, partnering seamlessly with the Quanzhou government to power every stage of the bid. An elite task-force of gastronomy scholars dispatched to the port city has catalogued centuries-old recipes and diaspora dishes, helping craft a standardized taxonomy of Quanzhou flavors. Leveraging its national network, the CCA has also opened a knowledge corridor with Chengdu, Shunde and Chaozhou—already crowned UNESCO Creative Cities of Gastronomy—so that Quanzhou can import best-practice playbooks on both the application process and post-designation industry growth. Throughout, the association has supplied line-by-line coaching to refine the dossier, keeping the city’s submission on the fast track.
One of the eight thematic pillars of UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network, the “City of Gastronomy” designation is designed to harness food as a driver of sustainable urban development. China’s tally already stands at six—Chengdu, Shunde (Foshan), Macao, Yangzhou, Huai’an and Chaozhou—spread across the country’s culinary map. Quanzhou’s entry now expands that roster, adding a vibrant coastal strand of Minnan and maritime-silk-road flavors to the nation’s gastronomic mosaic.
Looking ahead, the China Cuisine Association and the Quanzhou municipal government vow to deepen their partnership, using the newly won “City of Gastronomy” as a springboard for culinary innovation. Together they aim to turn Quanzhou into a global cultural bridge that exports Minnan flavors while importing ideas, and to keep feeding Chinese wisdom into the world’s expanding Creative Cities Network.
