Dianping (大众点评) is the app Shanghai eats by, and you can use it without reading Chinese: register with your phone or WeChat, search by neighbourhood, read the three sub-scores。
Dianping (大众点评) is the app Shanghai actually eats by, and you can use it without reading Chinese if you set it up properly. Register with your phone number or a WeChat login, search by the neighbourhood you are standing in, sort by rating, and buy a group-buy voucher before you order. The interface is Chinese-first, so pair it with your phone's built-in screen translation and budget five minutes the first time.
What is Dianping, and why does everyone here use it?
Dianping is China's restaurant review platform, now owned by Meituan, and it is where the ratings, photos, queue numbers and discounts all live. When a Shanghai friend says a place is a 4.8, this is the number they mean. It matters more than it sounds: restaurants here rarely have their own booking site, Google reviews are close to empty, and the menu photos you need before ordering an unfamiliar dish are almost all on Dianping. If you have already set up your payment apps in our Alipay and WeChat Pay guide, this is the natural next install.
It is also worth knowing what it is not. Dianping is a discovery and discount platform, not a delivery app. For delivery you want Meituan or Ele.me, which we cover in the food delivery guide.
Good to know
- Good for Anyone who has stood outside a Shanghai restaurant with no idea whether it is any good, which is everyone in their first month.
- What it costs The app is free. The 团购 vouchers typically save 10 to 30 percent, and the 人均 figure on every listing tells you the real per-head spend before you sit down.
- Set it up in Two minutes: sign up, switch the language, then sort by 智能排序 rather than distance.
Is Dianping available in English?
Not really, and you should plan around that rather than hunt for a toggle. Some builds of the app expose a language setting, but the reviews, dish names and voucher terms that you actually need are user-generated Chinese, so they stay Chinese whatever the menu language says. Two habits solve it:
- Use your phone's screen translation. On iPhone, long-press text to translate, or use the Translate app's camera. On most Android phones, Google Lens or the built-in translate does live overlay.
- Learn eight characters. 美食 food, 火锅 hot pot, 日料 Japanese, 咖啡 coffee, 团购 group deal, 订座 book a table, 排队 queue, 评价 reviews. That is genuinely enough to navigate the whole app.
How do I sign up with a foreign phone number?
Two routes, and the second one is the reliable fallback.
- Get the app. Search 大众点评 in your app store. If your store region blocks it, the WeChat mini-program works: open WeChat, tap search, choose Mini Programs, search 大众点评. It carries fewer features but enough to read reviews and buy deals.
- Register by phone. Tap the profile icon, choose to log in, change the country code from +86 if you need to, and enter the SMS code. A mainland number is smoother, and if you do not have one yet, start with our SIM card and phone number guide.
- Or log in with WeChat. If the SMS never lands, use the WeChat login button. It is the same account either way and it sidesteps foreign-number problems entirely.
How do I find a place worth eating at?
Search by area, not by name, then read the rating properly. The headline score runs to 5, and under it sit three sub-scores that tell you far more: 口味 taste, 环境 environment, 服务 service. A 4.9 taste with a 3.8 environment is a brilliant hole in the wall. The reverse is a photogenic room with forgettable food.
- 附近 (Nearby) ranks what is within walking distance of you, which is how most locals use it.
- 必吃榜 is Dianping's annual eating list, decided largely on user data, and it is a decent shortlist for a neighbourhood you do not know.
- 黑珍珠 is the platform's fine-dining guide, the domestic counterpart to the tyre-company one. Useful when you are planning something special.
- Photos over prose. Tap the user photo grid before the text. You will see portion sizes, the real room, and whether there is an English menu, in about ten seconds.
One honest caveat: ratings can be gamed with review incentives, and a brand-new listing sitting at 5.0 with nine reviews means nothing. I trust a 4.6 with two thousand reviews far more than a 4.9 with forty. For a starting point that is not algorithmic at all, our where expats actually eat list is a good cross-check.
What are 团购 and 代金券, and are they worth buying?
Yes, and skipping them is the single most common way expats overpay here. On a restaurant page you will see deal blocks:
- 团购 (group deal) is a set package at a fixed price: a two-person set menu, a hot pot combo, a coffee and cake pairing. You pay in the app and show the code at the table.
- 代金券 (voucher) is cash value at a discount, for example paying around 85 to 90 RMB for 100 RMB of spend. You can usually stack several on one bill, though each deal page states its own limit.
Read the small print block before buying: 使用时间 tells you which days and hours it is valid, 不可叠加 means it cannot be combined, and some deals exclude weekends or public holidays. Unused deals are generally refundable in the app before expiry, which is why buying at the table is low risk.
How do I book a table or take a queue ticket?
Look for 订座 to reserve and 排队 or 在线取号 to join a digital queue. Popular Shanghai restaurants often do not take bookings at all on weekends and run a numbered queue instead, which the app lets you join before you leave home. That is the difference between a twenty-minute wait and a ninety-minute one.
In the booking notes field, type your request in English. Restaurants read it through their own translation and it works surprisingly well for things like a quiet table, a high chair, no coriander, or a nut allergy. Keep it short and literal.
Three habits that separate locals from tourists on Dianping
Sort by 智能排序, not by distance. The default distance sort just shows you what is nearest, which in Shanghai is a lot of mediocre lunch. Smart sort weighs rating, review quality and deal availability, and it surfaces places worth crossing a road for.
Read the 人均 before anything else. It is the average per-head spend, printed on every listing, and it is the fastest price check in the city. A listing at 人均45 is a noodle lunch. One at 人均500 is an evening you should have known about in advance.
Save everything to 收藏. When someone names a restaurant, save it in the app the same minute. Shanghai has more restaurants than anyone can hold in their head, and the name is gone by the next morning.
One thing the food framing hides: Dianping is not only for eating. Massage, haircuts, gyms, dentists, nail salons, escape rooms and photo studios all live in the same app with the same reviews and the same voucher system, which makes it the quiet workhorse behind half the errands in this guide.
How do I pay, and do foreign cards work?
Pay inside the app with WeChat Pay or Alipay, both of which now accept most international Visa and Mastercard credit cards after you add the card in the payment app itself. Add the card there first, not in Dianping. At the restaurant you show the QR code from your purchased deals, the staff scan it, and you settle any remainder by scanning their table code. Cash still works in most places, but nobody will love you for it at a busy counter.
Which app is for you
If you want to find and book somewhere to eat out, choose Dianping. If you want food delivered to your door, choose Meituan or Ele.me. If you want visual inspiration and honest recent write-ups rather than scores, choose Xiaohongshu and search the neighbourhood name. If you need to actually find the door once you are out, choose Amap, which we cover in the Amap in English guide.
Can I trust Dianping's reviews and ratings?
Mostly, with a couple of habits. The star score out of five is a fair first filter, but the figure that tells you more is the review count: a 4.5 across 3,000 reviews means far more than a spotless 5 across twelve. Read the recent reviews rather than the top ones, because the top ones are sorted by likes and can be months stale. Watch for a wall of near-identical five-star lines posted close together, which usually signals a paid push. The single most useful number is 人均 (rén jūn), the average spend per person printed on each listing: it is drawn from real bills and is the honest guide to what a meal will actually cost you, more reliable than the menu photos.
Common questions
Can I use Dianping without a Chinese phone number?
Usually yes. Foreign numbers with the correct country code often work for SMS registration, and if yours does not, the WeChat login route gets you a full account without any phone verification.
Do I need real-name verification to use it?
Not for browsing, reviewing or buying most group deals. Verification comes up when you link a payment method inside WeChat Pay or Alipay, which is a one-time setup with your passport.
Are Dianping ratings trustworthy?
Broadly, with judgement. Weight the number of reviews, look at recent ones rather than the all-time average, and read the sub-scores. Treat a very high score on a very new listing with suspicion.
Can I get a refund on a group deal I did not use?
Generally yes, before the validity date expires. Open the deal in 我的 (My) and look for the refund option. Deals marked non-refundable say so on the purchase page, so check that line before paying.
Does Dianping work outside Shanghai?
It works nationwide, and it is just as useful in Suzhou or Hangzhou. If you are heading out for the weekend, our day trips guide pairs well with it.
