Sichuan is not just about spice

EBRU ERKE

If you think Sichuan cuisine is all about spicy food, then you haven’t really discovered it yet. On my first visit, I too expected a cuisine dominated by chillies, Sichuan pepper and hotpot. Yet what stayed with me was not the intensity of the spice, but the extraordinary complexity and layering of flavours. A single mouthful can begin with chilli heat, followed by that distinctive numbing tingle, then sweetness, acidity, fermentation and umami. Sometimes it is difficult to find two dishes on the same table that taste remotely alike.

That complexity is precisely what has earned Sichuan its place among China’s most important regional cuisines. Its capital, Chengdu, has been part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a City of Gastronomy since 2010, and UNESCO highlights the cuisine’s remarkable ability to balance sweet, sour, bitter, spicy and salty flavours. There is even a saying in China that captures Chengdu’s culinary reputation rather neatly: “Food is in China, but flavour is in Chengdu.”

The flavour sensation most closely associated with Sichuan cooking around the world is málà. The word describes two distinct sensations working together. Là is the heat of chilli; má is the peculiar tingling, numbing effect of Sichuan pepper, a sensation that can feel almost electric on the tongue. Bring the two together and the result is not simply greater spiciness. Combined with oils, aromatics, spices and fermented ingredients, they create a succession of sensations and flavours that seems to evolve as you eat.

Perhaps the greatest misconception about Sichuan cuisine is that it begins and ends with málà. Traditional Sichuan cooking encompasses dozens of distinct flavour profiles. Sweet-and-sour, garlicky, sesame-rich, pickled, fermented and red-oil preparations sit alongside dishes that can be surprisingly subtle and delicate. Sichuan cooking techniques have been recognised as part of China’s national intangible cultural heritage, while UNESCO’s report on Chengdu refers to 24 distinct flavour profiles within the cuisine.

Nor does Sichuan have a single culinary identity. Chengdu is the centre of a particularly refined and intricately layered style of Sichuan cooking. Nearby Leshan is a food destination in its own right, famous for street food and small bites, from tofu pudding and skewers to dumplings and shaomai. Travel further south and you reach Zigong, whose distinctive food culture grew out of the wealth generated by its historic salt industry. It is the heartland of yanbangcai, often translated as “salt merchants’ cuisine,” an important tradition within the broader Sichuan repertoire. Yibin, meanwhile, has its own distinctive noodle dishes and a taste for bold, assertive flavours. Saying “I’ve eaten Sichuan food” is therefore a little like saying “I’ve eaten Mediterranean food”: Travel a few hundred kilometres and the ingredients, the intensity of the spice and even the way people eat can change considerably.

Chengdu’s restaurant scene is also going through an interesting transformation. The 2027 Michelin Guide Chengdu, announced on 11 September, offers a revealing snapshot of how far the city has come. The selection includes 84 restaurants: One with three Michelin stars, one with two and 13 with one star. For the first time, Chengdu has a three-Michelin-starred restaurant. More significantly, the guide points to a new generation of chefs reinterpreting traditional techniques through contemporary ideas, with local produce and cultural identity playing an increasingly prominent role in their cooking.

For me, this is where Chengdu becomes particularly exciting. Tiny noodle shops where a bowl still costs only a few yuan, wonton specialists and traditional teahouses continue to thrive, while alongside them a serious contemporary dining scene is emerging, with chefs finding new ways to express Sichuan’s culinary heritage.

Perhaps what makes Sichuan so compelling today is precisely the fact that these two worlds can coexist. On one side are centuries of knowledge about fermentation, traditional teahouses, markets, bubbling hotpots and recipes passed down through families; on the other, a younger generation of chefs beginning to translate that inheritance into a contemporary culinary language.

HH ENTERING CHINA THROUGH A DIFFERENT GATEWAY

On this trip to China, I flew with Sichuan Airlines. It was my first time travelling with the carrier, and when I looked into the airline and saw the figures, I was surprised by its scale. Sichuan Airlines today operates an all-Airbus fleet of more than 200 aircraft and carries over 35 million passengers a year. According to the latest figures provided by the airline, its fleet has reached 213 aircraft and its network now covers 151 destinations.

Its story, in some ways, mirrors China’s extraordinary growth over the past four decades. Founded in 1986, Sichuan Airlines operated its first flight between Chengdu and Wanzhou in 1988. When the company was restructured in 2002, its fleet consisted of just 12 aircraft. Today, it is the fifth Chinese airline to have passed the 200-aircraft mark. It was also the first airline in mainland China to operate the Airbus A320 — an interesting detail in the story of a carrier that has since built an entirely Airbus fleet.

I flew business class from Istanbul to Chengdu. And in fact, you don’t have to wait until you land to get your first taste of Sichuan; the character of the region begins to reveal itself on board. The cabin crew’s charming panda aprons during meal service are the first playful detail. More importantly for me, however, was the food. Regional flavours appear on the menu, so your introduction to Sichuan cuisine can begin at 10,000 metres. On long-haul flights, where airlines often gravitate towards dishes designed to appeal to the broadest possible range of palates, I liked the fact that Sichuan Airlines allowed the destination to make its presence felt before we had even arrived.

Once you land in Chengdu, a very different side of China opens up. From its home base, the airline flies to major cities including Lhasa, Kunming, Sanya, Hangzhou and Nanjing, as well as destinations such as Xishuangbanna, Dali and Daocheng, which are considerably less straightforward to reach from Türkiye. For me, that is one of the most interesting aspects of flying into Chengdu: It offers an alternative gateway to western and southwestern China. The airline’s international network was broader than I had expected, too. Sichuan Airlines has branded its international expansion “Panda Routes,” and its network today extends across Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania and North America.

Its ownership structure is another interesting detail. Sichuan Airlines is independently managed, yet its shareholders include all three of China’s major state-owned airline groups. Sichuan Airlines Group holds the largest stake at 40 per cent, followed by China Southern at 39 per cent, while China Eastern and Air China each hold 10 per cent. The remaining one per cent belongs to Chengdu Gingko Restaurant Co. — a small detail that, as a food writer, naturally caught my attention.

But beyond the fleet sizes, passenger numbers and route maps, what interests me most is where an airline can take you. A good air connection does more than shorten the distance between two cities; sometimes it opens up a journey you might never otherwise have thought of making.

Sichuan is a perfect example. You can spend several days in Chengdu eating your way from hotpot and dan dan mian to mapo tofu, while discovering the city’s wonderful teahouse culture, and then continue your journey into an entirely different part of China. Sichuan Airlines’ extensive domestic network also means there is no reason to experience the country solely along the familiar Beijing–Shanghai axis. Even within Sichuan itself, Chengdu makes an excellent starting point for a food journey through Leshan, Zigong and Yibin.

Perhaps the most interesting thought I brought home from this journey was this: In a country as vast as China, the gateway through which you enter can shape the China you ultimately discover. This time, that gateway was Chengdu. And I didn’t even have to wait until landing to begin discovering Sichuan; from the panda aprons to the regional flavours, the journey had already begun on board.

For someone like me, who so often plans a journey around what I am going to eat when I get there, it is difficult to imagine a more delicious beginning.