The Best Places to Eat and Stay in China

At Moxy Nanjing Jiangning, check-in happens at the bar, where the crew hands you a room key and a cocktail before you've seen your room. It's a mid-range hotel in Jiangning District with 176 compact rooms built around peg walls, foldable furniture, and walk-in showers, all of it designed to feel less like a hotel and more like a well-organized crash pad. Moxy Kitchen & Bar runs from breakfast through last call. Metro Lines 1 and 5 stop nearby.

The Marriott occupies the upper floors of the 333-metre Modern Media Center, Changzhou's tallest tower and a building shaped after the ancient Tianning Pagoda. A full-service hotel with 268 rooms that look out over the city from real altitude, each fitted with Jintan paper-cutting art, a craft with National Intangible Cultural Heritage status. Huaiyang and Cantonese cooking, Italian, and an all-day bistro cover most moods. China Dinosaur Park is a five-minute drive.

An ink-wash print above each bed and pale wood paneling throughout give this 98-room business hotel a quieter mood than its Marriott flag might suggest. It sits in Quanzhou's Fengze district, built for the in-and-out traveler, with a 24-hour gym and self-service laundry for anyone who lingers. Breakfast runs daily at the in-house restaurant, simple and on time. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected hotels.

One of the guest suites is a fully realized pirate ship, complete with a slide, gold masts, and whale-painted skies on the ceiling, which is either the best argument for bringing children or the worst one, depending on your outlook. This large convention-adjacent hotel in Expo Bay runs on that split personality: grown-up rooms in deep textiles and crimson, a proper Cantonese restaurant, and a lounge that tips its hat to old merchant-shipping history.

A full-service Marriott hotel in Huangyan District, backed by a Chinese-style garden with West River views from most of the 328 rooms. Earth tones and warm lighting run through the public spaces, drawing on Zhejiang's landscapes. Man Ho handles the Cantonese side of things while Goji Kitchen & Bar keeps a seafood-heavy buffet going. Eighteen Lakes and the Huangyan Waterfall are a short drive out, and the yellow cave formations are worth the trip off-property.

Shawan Ancient Town has been making ginger milk pudding and Guangdong music longer than most cities have had street plans, and this 13-room boutique guesthouse sits right at its cobblestoned center. Expect courtyard garden views, private bathtubs, tatami-style rooms, a Cantonese restaurant, and a bar with serious artisanal whisky selections. The ancestral halls are a seven-minute walk, which gives you just enough time to feel smug about your accommodation choice.

Every one of the 390 rooms has a private balcony, and on a clear day the view runs from centuries-old temples to glass towers still finding their reflections. This full-service hotel sits inside the Lingnan Tiandi district, where the Michelin Guide has taken note, and the interiors lean into that heritage with warm woods and soft lighting without turning the whole thing into a museum. Cantonese cooking at Lingnan Garden and a terrace bar round out the stay.

A hotel that takes wellness seriously enough to put an AI workout mirror in the room and still find space for coral and teal geometric interiors. It sits against Shenzhen's National Forest Park in the greenest part of the city, so the surroundings do half the work. The restaurant pulls from local organic ingredients for Chinese and Western dishes daily. Good if you want the healthy-travel brief without having to carry it yourself.

Theme rooms fitted out with tents and doll-house layouts hint at who the InterContinental Foshan DongPing is really courting: families who want a hotel that keeps the kids genuinely occupied. There's a kids' club, a jumping castle, and a dedicated children's pool, while Cantonese dining at Canal Luna nods to Shunde's standing as a UNESCO Gourmet Capital. Dongping Metro connects the property to Guangzhou and local temples without any fuss.

Shunde earned its UNESCO City of Gastronomy status as the cradle of Cantonese cooking, and this sleek hotel leans into that history with Zhen Kitchen's lychee-wood barbecue and a garden terrace for eating outside. All 65 rooms and suites have floor-to-ceiling windows facing either a golf course or manicured grounds. The Lobby Lounge, wrapped in brushed metal screens, pours wine and tea for guests arriving from Guangzhou South Station about half an hour away.

Art deco details run all the way up to a rooftop garden at this Sheraton on the Yongning River in Huangyan District. The Chinese restaurant leans into coastal Taizhou identity, pairing Cantonese technique with local seafood from the fishing traditions just offshore. An all-day coffee bar and a proper cocktail bar handle the in-between hours, while a heated indoor pool and kids club make it function well for families. LuckyCity Shopping Center is a short walk away.

Twenty-four architects contributed to this 102-room hotel in Pukou District, which means the building itself is the main event. Liu Jiakun's main structure breaks into black, white, and grey concrete volumes along a hillside, public spaces tucked into the valley, guest rooms scattered in blocks above, the whole thing reading like a classical ink-wash landscape rendered in rough cement. The Sifang Contemporary Art Museum is a short walk away.

The indoor pool's sculptural ceiling is the kind of thing that stops you mid-stroke. This voco hotel near China Dinosaur Land skips the standard-issue beige of most Chinese business hotels for navy and mustard rooms with open-frame wardrobes and paneled headboards. The in-house Tian Xiang Lou runs Huaiyang and Cantonese cooking across 25 private dining rooms, so the food situation is more serious than the theme-park address might suggest.

Villas arranged around excavated ore rock walls and old waterways, Hotel Indigo Nanjing Garden Expo sits inside Tangshan Garden Expo, and the architecture bends around the terrain rather than flattening it. Rooms lean into the mineral past with stone textures and metallic finishes, and the windows face valley birdsong. The on-site restaurant, MAI, is styled after geologists' field tents, which tells you the theme runs deep.

Three sides of water and 270-degree lake views from the upper floors set the tone at this hotel on a peninsula where Yunshan Lake Park meets Yangcheng Lake. Rooms have teal tile bathrooms, terrazzo vanities, dark wood dividers, and private balconies jutting out over the shoreline. The design keeps the palette deliberately neutral so the lake does the decorating. Twenty minutes from Suzhou's main train stations, parkland and a sailing community fill the rest of the picture.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Shunde skyline across four room styles that range from modern minimalist to French classic, all sharing Sofitel's signature MYBED setup. The hotel connects directly to the Louvre Exhibition Center, which tells you something about the clientele: furniture industry types here for business, not sightseeing. The spa blends French cosmetology with Chinese techniques, and two restaurants cover Italian and a broader international spread.

The check-in desk here is a wall of books, styled after a scholar's library, because the building was once the residence of a local scholar whose poetry lines the room interiors. This 178-room MGallery hotel sits inside Dangkou Ancient Town's canal network of stone bridges and courtyard houses, with two restaurants covering Chinese-Western cooking and Huaiyang classics, plus a teahouse overlooking a preserved water feature out back.

Geothermal water feeds the Wonderland Hot Spring wellness complex at the heart of this HUALUXE resort, which sits on the edge of East Taihu Lake in Suzhou's Wujiang District. The brand is designed around Chinese luxury travelers, though the instinct to help guests live like a local translates just as well for visitors from further afield. Rooms run contemporary-classic, and two restaurants cover the full range from all-day casual to properly formal.

A former cement factory on the scenic edge of Nanjing is the bones of this 110-room luxury boutique hotel, where weathered concrete walls and industrial bones have been coaxed into something warmer than the genre usually allows. Restaurants occupy disused factory spaces, the spa is substantial, and some rooms come with private hot-spring tubs. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Set inside a provincial garden expo park in the mountains east of the city, this voco hotel spreads across low-rise buildings arranged like a village rather than stacking everyone into a single tower. Rooms are modern with traditional touches, and the design keeps nudging your eye toward the landscape outside. For a Nanjing stay with actual quiet around it, this is a different proposition from the downtown options.

A charcoal-grey headboard and a mountain-line mural give the rooms more personality than the Fairfield name might suggest. This mid-range hotel in Jiaojiang sits a short drive from Taizhou Bay Wetland Park, and the breakfast spread runs from build-your-own omelets to Greek yogurt with agave and almonds, which covers most moods. The on-site restaurant handles regional Chinese cooking for dinner. Luqiao Airport is about 16 kilometers out.

Qingshan Lake is where metasequoias planted in the 1960s grow straight out of the water, their roots submerged so the forest appears to float. The Grand Mercure sits three minutes from that shore, a full-service hotel with 330 lake-view rooms and two restaurants, one doing East-West fusion from an open kitchen and another covering Hangzhou and Cantonese cooking across ten private dining rooms. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

The outdoor pool sits on the top floor with Taihu Lake wetlands somewhere in the distance, which tells you most of what you need to know about how Hotel Indigo has positioned this one. Rooms lean into soft colors and tactile fabrics, with quiet references to Wuxi's visual history woven in. The restaurant handles both Western dishes and local Wuxi cooking, pulling from seasonal ingredients, so you're not stuck eating international-hotel purgatory for three nights.

Floor-to-ceiling views of Taihu Lake anchor this contemporary luxury hotel, part of IHG's China-focused Hualuxe brand, rising in Wuxi's new lakefront district. The design pulls from local landscape and culture, and the wetland parks outside are close enough to actually walk to. A late-night noodle bar handles the midnight hour; Cai Feng Lou handles the rest with considerably more ceremony.

A full-service Marriott hotel in Fuzhou's Donghu Digital Town, close to the Digital China Convention Center and about 20 minutes from the airport. The 315 rooms look out over East Lake or the East China Sea, and the Dew Bud Tea House pours local jasmine tea and Wuyi Mountain rock tea against the same view. The Changle District has seafaring history most visitors skip entirely, which gives the setting a little more texture than a convention-hotel address usually gets.

The Qingming Bridge arches show up everywhere here, from the room doorways to the restaurant ceiling, which is either charming place-making or very committed interior decorating. This IHG Indigo hotel sits in a canal neighborhood of old waterways and traditional houses, and the rooms lean into that texture with local design details alongside contemporary comfort. An indoor pool is a pleasant find, and the kitchen pairs French technique with Jiangnan flavors.

A tiered chandelier anchors a circular lobby ringed by hand-painted landscape murals, and the scale only compounds from there. This is a grand business-district hotel in Changzhou's Wujin Hi-Tech zone, where upper-floor suites come with curved floor-to-ceiling windows and a formal Chinese palatial sensibility that stops just short of requiring a dress rehearsal. Tian Xiang Lou seats nearly 300 and has 19 private rooms, one with its own entrance.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame either the Pearl River skyline or the mountains beyond, depending on which side of the tower you land on. This upscale hotel sits inside Dongguan's International Trade Center, its lobby lounge and cocktail bar drawing a polished after-work crowd most evenings with live music. Rooms lean contemporary, with floral details lifted from classical Cantonese garden design. There's a spa, a gym, and a heated pool with boxing gear if the minibar got out of hand.

The name promises an ocean it cannot deliver, given that Chengdu is landlocked by roughly a thousand miles in every direction, but the hot spring pools tucked into private villas go some way toward making peace with that. This MGallery resort sits twenty miles from the city center in an agricultural county, and leans into the distance: garden-view rooms, a vast shared hot spring and spa complex, and an all-day restaurant quietly showcasing the produce grown just next door.

Humen is where a Qing official publicly destroyed over a million kilograms of seized opium in 1839, an act that touched off the First Opium War, and the museum marking that site is a short walk from this mid-range hotel on the main avenue. Atour is a Chinese brand known for running a tight ship: warm-toned rooms, courtyard-facing options, a rooftop gym, and service that tends to actually show up.

A full-service Marriott in the commercial heart of Jintan, halfway between Mount Maoshan, where Shangqing Taoism was born, and Changdang Lake, one of Jiangsu's largest freshwater stretches. The 280 rooms run generous, and the hotel covers its dining bases with Goji Kitchen and Bar for regional Chinese from an open kitchen and the more formal Man Ho for when the occasion calls for it. Changzhou North Railway Station is about half an hour away.

A boutique IHG hotel on the edge of one of the Yangtze Delta's most intact ancient water towns, where stone bridges and covered canal corridors have been quietly ignoring modernity for centuries. The 113 rooms lean into the setting with blush walls and bold geometric headboards, and some look directly over the old town's rooftops. Five private dining rooms, named for Xitang's historic bridges, serve Cantonese, Hangzhou, and Jiangnan cooking.

A 12th-century Song Dynasty painting was the starting point for architect Wang Shu, and the result is a low-slung resort of concrete and wood sitting on the wooded shores of Yanqi Lake, well northeast of the city. Rooms land in modern-luxe territory, using classic Chinese design as a foundation. The lake, the woods, a pool, and a rooftop walking trail take care of the rest, with Chaosan and French dining when you come inside.

The all-white buildings here are arranged around waterways and reflecting pools so deliberately it starts to feel less like a hotel and more like a small city someone designed while in a very calm mood. Set in an old water town outside Shanghai, this resort's 125 suites and villas lean spare and crisp, the spa has an indoor pool that stops people mid-sentence, and the restaurant looks out over the lake from a height that makes the view feel theatrical.

Haining's Leather City commercial district isn't anyone's idea of a scenic address, but the Hualuxe leans into the business-hotel brief while quietly ignoring everything boring about it. The design mixes contemporary lines with traditional Chinese flourishes in ways that feel deliberate rather than decorative. Rooms come loaded with the latest tech alongside the kind of low-key comforts that matter after a long day. The late-night noodle bar is a sensible touch for anyone arriving on a delayed train.

Every room comes with a balcony, and the view is either the lake or the gardens, which is a reasonable way to start a stay. The Primus is a full-service resort hotel in Jiaxing's quieter Nanhu District, beside Xiangjia Lake and well away from the city's more historically loaded addresses. An indoor pool, spa, and kids' club give it a genuine resort spread. Shanghai Hongqiao is about 80 kilometers west, making this a plausible escape from that particular city.

Ancient camphor trees and a lotus pond frame this boutique hotel on the edge of Puyuan Town, a Jiangnan water town that somehow also hosts China's biggest knitwear market and its own fashion week. The interiors take their cue from a Song Dynasty painting of literati garden gatherings, translated into linen textures, ivory tones, and glass walls that open onto the rice paddies. The name means "original dwelling," which is doing a lot of work, but the setting earns it.

The restaurant, Sen, runs twenty-four hours and overlooks a tree canopy from the second floor, which sets the tone for this forested hotel outside Hangzhou, closer to a thousand-year-old temple than to the city it's named after. Contemporary interiors pull in classic motifs, though the design's real argument is the view: the surrounding "Kingdom of Trees" is visible from almost everywhere, including two pools, indoor and out.

Nanhu Lake is right there, the same stretch of water where the Chinese Communist Party wrapped up its first congress on a boat in 1921, and the Marriott sits on its edge, bordering the Botanical Garden. The interiors echo traditional Jiaxing architecture, all pale plaster and grey tile across 347 rooms. Jiaxuan Pavilion handles Huaiyang and Cantonese cooking on site, and the water towns of Wuzhen and Xitang are both an easy day trip away.

The indoor infinity pool hangs over Meixi Lake, which sets the tone for this modern business hotel in Changsha's purpose-built lakeside district. Rooms configured for parents traveling with kids make it more family-friendly than the corporate address might suggest, and the Lakeview Terrace Bar pulls in guests who would never touch an expense report. The Michelin Guide includes it among its selected hotels.

Langham Place Changsha sits inside a deconstructivist tower by Coop Himmelblau, the firm behind BMW Welt in Munich, and the most unusual thing on its doorstep is one of Southern China's largest indoor ski slopes. The 288 rooms run cool-toned and understated, Ming Court handles serious Cantonese dining on the floors below, and Peak bar takes the top. A Michelin Selected Hotel.

Floor-to-ceiling windows framing the mineral-scarred mountains of the Keketuohai geopark set the tone at this four-star hotel, where the region's ski slopes and geological oddities are the main event. The 73 rooms run to blue velvet headboards, flat-screen TVs, and properly stocked bathrooms. Breakfast covers Western, Chinese, and Asian options, and the team sorts ski equipment and car hire for guests who came here to actually use the outdoors.

The Aloft sits on Luxun Road in Zhongshan District, a five-minute walk from the colonial-era square that anchors old Dalian. It's a 314-room hotel in the younger, livelier mold, with efficiently designed rooms and walk-in showers. The W XYZ bar draws an evening crowd, and the sixth-floor Nook restaurant swings between a summer rooftop BBQ and a seafood buffet when the weather turns. Russian Street and the harbor are both within easy walking distance.

Graphic wallpaper and jewel-toned chairs replace the usual business-hotel beige at this 259-room hotel tucked inside a busy mall complex in Shijiazhuang's northwest. Rooms are wired for laptop workers, with plug-and-play stations feeding straight into 55-inch TVs. Depot handles breakfast and a few regional dishes; WXYZ Bar takes over after dark. Hebei Museum and Zhengding's old town are a short drive when the work tab closes.

Karst peaks frame every balcony at this resort south of Guiyang, which Anantara has dropped into a corner of Guizhou better known for Miao and Dong villages than pool villas. The 218 rooms and suites lean into the surroundings with indigenous textiles and terrazzo baths, while the Siam restaurant serves Thai fine dining to a landlocked province, a pairing that sounds stranger on paper than it does at the table.

Curved white walls and circular window frames give this 24-room boutique resort on Erhai Lake the look of a Mediterranean villa that took a very long wrong turn and ended up in Yunnan. The architecture is deliberately foreign to Dali's terracotta vernacular, which is either a conceptual statement or very good marketing. Freestanding stone baths, balconies fixed on the Cangshan range, and an infinity pool complete the picture.

The name translates roughly as "Come, friend," the greeting traders exchanged along the old Tea Horse Road, and the hotel wears that spirit without forcing it. Raw plaster walls, dark timber, and thick-curtained rooms with freestanding baths give the place a spare, moody feel. It sits on the Lhasa River beside the old town, with Barkhor Street and the Jokhang Temple a short walk away. The kitchen covers Tibetan and Chinese cooking.

A resident deer wanders the courtyard here, which tells you something about the pace of the place. This 38-room courtyard hotel sits inside UNESCO-listed Lijiang Old Town, built on the old grounds of a Naxi temple fair, with architecture drawn from the nearby Mufu aristocratic compound. Jade Dragon Snow Mountain is visible from the rooftop, and Mufu Palace is a short walk along the cobblestones.

Luhuitou Mountain, whose name comes from a Hainan legend about a deer who turned into a woman and looked back for the fisherman she loved, rises behind this serviced residence on Dadonghai's crescent bay. The 186 apartments run from studios to three-bedroom penthouses, most with balconies and fully equipped kitchens, 500 meters from water calm enough to make the busier resort strips down the coast feel unnecessary.

The building hangs a glass bridge called The Crystal 250 meters above the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, making it the highest skybridge on the planet, which is a fairly audacious way to greet guests. Moshe Safdie, the architect behind Marina Bay Sands, designed the whole complex. Ascott's 201 serviced apartments sit in one of the towers, with full kitchens and river views on the upper floors, suited to longer stays in one of China's most dramatically vertical cities.

Extended-stay hotel in central Hefei, part of IHG's Atwell Suites brand, with 168 rooms kitted out with wet bars, smart appliances, and sofa beds for the long-haul crowd. The look is light and considered, pale oak herringbone floors and sage walls with bursts of orange abstract art keeping things from feeling corporate. The fitness floor runs to a boxing ring and a yoga room. The in-house bistro serves creative buns and local Hefei specialties.

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain fills the window before you've even unpacked, which sets the tone for this 55-villa luxury resort in the ancient Shuhe district of Lijiang, a UNESCO World Heritage town ringed by rice fields. Villas come with sprawling bedrooms, palatial bathrooms, and their own pools, jet or plunge or full swimming. A spa and a menu of treks by foot, bike, or horse through Yunnan countryside handle whatever restlessness the pools don't cure.

A guqin sits on a low platform beside a tiered cobalt reflecting pool in the arrival court, which tells you immediately this is not another generic tropical resort. Banyan Tree Sanya is an all-villa resort on the Hainan coast where dark-fired brick courtyards meet Balinese timber pergolas and every one of the 49 villas comes with a private pool. The spa houses the brand's first hydrothermal complex in Asia.

Amber-lit corridors and raw stone water features run through this boutique hotel a short walk from Kaiyuan Temple, in a city whose food culture and woodcarving traditions long predate the boutique hotel boom. The interiors are dark and deliberate: arched doorways, courtyard gardens with mature trees, low-platform beds, and balconies overlooking old-city rooflines. Small and independently spirited, it sits in a place worth visiting for its own sake.

Every room faces Huangshan pine forest, which does most of the decorating for this constellation-themed boutique hotel at the foot of the mountain. The 30 rooms lean into Japanese minimalism and celestial motifs in the lighting without turning the whole thing into a theme park. Tempur-Pedic beds and a full spa handle recovery after the peaks, and both main cable car routes are a short walk away.

The building is designed to look like a cruise ship, which either charms you or makes you wonder if you took a wrong turn at the pier. This is a full-scale beach resort on Haitang Bay, where the South China Sea sits outside every room terrace. All 405 rooms include outdoor space, the rooftop pool is covered, and the spa and kids' program mean the whole family can disappear in different directions.