Gourmet Zhanjiang cuisine uses fresh raw materials and is mostly cooked with coarse ingredients. It emphasizes the original flavor. Compared with traditional Cantonese cuisine, Chaozhou cuisine, Hakka cuisine and other Cantonese cuisines, its cooking methods and taste can be said to be its own system and have a unique and rich local flavor.

Representative dishes of Zhanjiang cuisine: Zhanjiang chicken (Zhanjiang white-cut chicken), Zhanjiang charcoal-grilled oysters, white-cut duck, boiled sea shrimp, steamed flower crab, Naozhou abalone and lobster, steamed sandworms with garlic paste, etc.

Snacks include Zhanjiang charcoal-grilled oysters, prawns, stir-fried noodles, fish head soup, boiled chicken, boiled flower crabs, sand worm soup, sand snail soup, and fried shrimp cakes.

The "Eight Famous Fruits of Zhanjiang" in Guangdong, in order, are: red orange, pineapple, jackfruit, mango, lychee, banana, dragon fruit and green dates.