Yantai is the birthplace of jujube and Shandong cuisine, the first of the eight major cuisines in China, and is known as the "hometown of cooking". In Yantai, you must try authentic Shandong cuisine. The origin of Shandong cuisine can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. It developed rapidly in the Northern and Southern Dynasties and was recognized as a major school in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Choose livestock, seafood and vegetables as raw materials, make good use of cooking methods such as frying, grilling, roasting, pot, wire drawing and dense juice, and emphasize on seasoning with sauce, onion and garlic, and make good use of clear soup and milk soup to make it fresh and salty. Famous dishes include "abalone with raw shell, sea cucumber with onion, and cattail leaf in milk soup". The style of the dish is elegant and adaptable.

The 9-kilometer-long coastline of Yantai is rich in precious sea cucumbers, scallops, abalones, conchs, prawns and Cargill fish, which determines that Yantai's cooking is mainly based on seafood.

Yantai cuisine is famous for its freshness, crispness and original flavor, and its cooking techniques are mainly fried, sauteed, sauteed, steamed, fried and grilled. The order of serving requires cold before hot, salty before sweet, and there must be fish at each table. Without sea cucumber, it is not a big table. The main famous dishes are roasted sea cucumber with onion, abalone with peeled shell, dried scallop with hibiscus, fried oyster yellow, grilled squid with white sauce, razor clam with alfalfa, peeled prawns, sauteed mullet flowers with coriander, fried sea intestines with leeks and so on.

Making famous dishes and delicacies with small seafood is a major feature of Yantai flavor. The famous teachers and masters in Yantai have many unique skills in cooking these rare small seafood. The cooked seafood is not only fresh, crisp and tender, the soup is clear and delicious, but also the dishes are in various shapes, which makes the eaters not only enjoy the delicious food, but also get beautiful pleasure. In addition to dishes, Yantai flavor also enjoys a high reputation for pastry. Fushan Lamian Noodles, Penglai Xiaomian and Hard-faced Pot Cake are all famous at home and abroad.