Christchurch guide
The best Chinese food in Christchurch
Christchurch Chinese goes a long way past sweet-and-sour and a combo box — though the city still does that well. This is proper Sichuan with the numbing peppercorns, Cantonese yum cha and claypot rice, Teochew home cooking, charcoal skewers, cook-your-own hotpot, and dumpling counters from the Riccarton strip to the food halls.
28 of them across the city — thickest through Riccarton, with Addington and the central city close behind, and outliers worth the drive from Sumner to Papanui. Banquet rooms, boxed lunches, buffets and the takeaways that have fed their suburbs for decades.
The regional rooms reward going in a group and over-ordering; the hotpot and BBQ spots are built for exactly that. And the takeaways are at their best midweek, when the queue is short and the wok is hot.
Venue data checked weekly · Updated August 2026
The picks
- 01Maxine's Palace · Restaurant · Addington
A licensed Chinese restaurant on Lincoln Road, Addington — an all-day menu, yum cha-style options and BYO wine.
- 02Ancestral Restaurant · Restaurant · Riccarton
An unusual Riccarton mash-up of authentic Sichuan and Malaysian cooking — proper heat and big flavours.
- 03Chopsticks Restaurant · Restaurant · Ilam
A Chinese and Asian-fusion room out by Fendalton and Bryndwr that's been going more than twenty years — dine-in or takeaway, set menus, and Chinese New Year…
- 04Miss Peppercorn 花椒小姐 · Restaurant · Sumner
Sichuan cooking in Sumner — proper numbing heat, mapo tofu, dry-fried green beans and the bold flavours of Chengdu, a surprise for a beach suburb.
- 05Dumplings on Riccarton · Restaurant · Riccarton
Dumplings the main event on the Riccarton strip — steamed, fried or in soup, made fresh and cheap.
- 06Welcome Chinese Vegetarian Cafe · Cafe · Riccarton
Chinese vegetarian and vegan cooking in Riccarton — mock meats, tofu and the familiar dishes made meat-free.
- 07The China Kitchen · Restaurant · Papanui
A family-owned Papanui Chinese going 20-plus years — fresh, no-MSG cooking and a name for its pan-fried dumplings.
- 08Little Spicy Chinese Restaurant · Restaurant · Riccarton
Proper Sichuan on Riccarton Road — numbing peppercorn and dried chilli through dishes like spicy beef tofu pot, white-pepper lamb soup and chilli-bean fish…
- 09Orange House Restaurant & Takeaways · Takeaway · Riccarton
Order-and-collect Chinese off Riccarton Road, working through the classics — deep-fried wontons, sweet-and-sour pork, big serves of fried rice.
- 10Foo San Restaurant 富山 · Restaurant · Riccarton
A long-running Chinese restaurant in Riccarton — yum cha and Cantonese classics, the old-school banquet kind of place.
+ 18 more on the map below ↓
Keep exploring
Common questions
- What's the best Chinese food in Christchurch?
- A few to start with: Maxine's Palace, Ancestral Restaurant, Chopsticks Restaurant, Miss Peppercorn 花椒小姐, Dumplings on Riccarton. The city runs deeper than the combo-box takeaway — proper Sichuan and regional rooms, Cantonese yum cha, cook-it-yourself hotpot, dumpling specialists and claypot rice, alongside the long-serving neighbourhood takeaways.
- Where do you go for Sichuan or regional Chinese?
- FOCUS Chinese Dining in Addington and Little Spicy on Riccarton Road both do proper Sichuan heat, Miss Peppercorn brings Chengdu cooking to Sumner of all places, Southern Asian Restaurant in town leans Teochew, and Figo's Kitchen runs a northern-style boxed-lunch spread that changes with whatever the chef cooked that day.
- Where's good for yum cha, dumplings or hotpot?
- Foo San in Riccarton is the old-school yum cha banquet room. For dumplings: Dumplings on Riccarton, Dumpling Corner at The Tannery, and Eightgrains at Little High. YiGuo Hi HotPot does the cook-your-own broths, Fuji Buffet & Bar covers all-you-can-eat BBQ and hotpot, and Uncle Seven's claypot rice is worth it for the crispy bottom alone.