1956 36 famous dishes in Hangzhou recognized by Zhejiang Province: braised dried bamboo shoots, shrimps in Longjing, fish balls in clear soup, water shield soup in West Lake, honey-fried recipe, fried eel slices, Dongpo meat, winter bamboo shoots in shrimps, ham and broad beans, vinegar fish in West Lake, babao chicken, fried bell, Hangzhou sauced duck and Penan. Dried bamboo shoots, fish head thick soup, yipin South Milk, braised duck in Hangzhou, Menghuo whipping bamboo shoots, salted slices, clams, crucian carp, stewed whipping bamboo shoots, dried herring, fried shrimp, and rice with tomato and shrimp.

Hangzhou cuisine, also known as "Beijing-Hangzhou cuisine", is a fusion of northern and southern tastes. At that time, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, which runs through the north and south, introduced northern cooking methods to Hangzhou, so the taste of hangzhou dishes was more easily accepted by northerners. Not as sweet as Suzhou food, nor as thick as Shanghai food. Su Dongpo, a great poet in the Song Dynasty, once praised that "there is no Hang Cheng in the world" and had an allusion to "getting off the horse at the smell of incense".