Located north of Mount Tai and the lower reaches of the Yellow River, Jinan is rich in food materials. Jinan cuisine usually uses deep frying, roasting, boiling and stir frying.

Jinan cuisine is famous for its fragrance, freshness and purity of taste. One dish, one taste. You can try 100 hundred dishes and they will all taste different. Soup is the local specialty. There are strict instructions for making clear and milky soups. Using stock soup in modulating dishes is a characteristic technique in Jinan. The famous Jinan cuisine dishes are sweet and sour carp, chicken cubes in chili sauce, roasted pork intestines, soup burst pairs of crisp, milk soup with pu, south bowel, and yuji braised chicken. It excels at sweet dishes, like Chinese yam in hot toffee and honey barbecued hand-carved chicken, as well as soups. Besides, the other four flavors of dishes – sour, salty, bitter and spicy – can also be found in Jinan cuisine. 

Famous snacks in Jinan are fried dumplings, cluster package, silk pie, sugar revived pancake and rohan cake.