Flavors of modern China spread globally

The image of Chinese food abroad is changing as a new generation of restaurant brands arrives overseas with ambitions that stretch far beyond the dimly lit Chinatown restaurants of yesteryear.

The top 50 Chinese catering and new tea-beverage brands collectively operated 6,801 stores abroad by the end of 2025, with 24 opening their first overseas outlets after 2023, according to the China Chain Store and Franchise Association. Today, nearly 700,000 Chinese-owned restaurants operate across more than 180 countries and regions, a trend the Hongcan Industry Research Institute said began in 2023, the first year of the sector's earnest global expansion.

For many of those behind the push, the motivation is as personal as it is commercial.

Ma Xuejun, 30, the founder of Noodle MaMa, a restaurant in Melbourne, Australia, specializing in Xiangyang beef noodles, knows this feeling well.

Originally from Xiangyang in Hubei province, she arrived in Australia in 2017 on a working holiday visa before settling down. Ma is currently studying for an MBA at the University of Melbourne, while running a cross-border e-commerce business.

"This restaurant is, in some ways, a gift to my mother, who came to Australia to help look after my daughter but struggled to find a sense of purpose. Opening the restaurant became a way to change that," she said.

Her mother now works in the kitchen and it is her exacting standards that define the restaurant's signature broth. "After closing time, our whole family is still working, rendering the oil, because the real fragrance doesn't come from additives. It comes from hours of slow cooking," said Ma.

The choice to focus on Xiangyang-style noodles — known for its rich beef broth, handmade noodles and chili oil — rather than more familiar Chinese dishes, was deliberate.

"A lot of people asked me: who knows Xiangyang noodles? Why not do something more mainstream? But I've always believed that the more regional a food is, the more vitality it has. Behind every local flavor is culture, memory and human emotion," she said.

The popular restaurant opened in April this year in Melbourne's Balwyn suburb. Australian diners currently make up around 10 percent of customers, and most have become regulars. Many have surprised Ma by embracing the spiciness of the noodles.

"I was watching them nervously the whole time, worried they couldn't handle the heat. However, they told me that is exactly the kind of spicy we like," she said.