WINNER OF THE FORTNUM & MASON COOKERY BOOK AWARD 2025

Let Michael Zee, creator of the popular SymmetryBreakfast account, be your knowledgeable guide to breakfast in China.

Contains over 40 recipes with QR codes that allow you to watch how the dishes are made in China

Breakfast in China is an important affair. At dawn, the streets come alive with vendors setting up for the morning breakfast rush. Each will have their speciality that they make day in, day out, honing their recipe over years, and even generations. Locals are spoilt for choice, with a huge variety of spicy noodles, plump dumplings and fluffy buns all made fresh to order right on their doorsteps.

Michael Zee, creator of the popular SymmetryBreakfast account, has eaten his way around China, hunting down the very best versions of these morning favourites and recreating them at home so that you can too. In China, these are recipes devised for speed and convenience and so are also perfect for filling lunches, nourishing dinners and quick and tasty snacks.

Why not try:
Dan dan mian - Sichuanese street-style noodles with a sesame paste sauce
Jian bing - savoury filled crêpe
Xiaolongbao - steamed Shangainese soup dumplings
Youtiao - sweetened fried dough sticks, delicious dipped in fresh soy milk or covered in soft serve ice cream

With Michael as your knowledgeable tour guide, you'll be transported to the bustling streets of China, see the mesmeric pulling of noodles and pleating of dumplings and be fully immersed in one of the most exciting and diverse food cultures in the world.

Michael Zee is the creator of the online sensation SymmetryBreakfast, which has been featured in the Guardian, Washington Post, Telegraph and many others. Being British-Chinese, growing up helping out in his parents' Chinese restaurants and spending five years living in Shanghai, he is uniquely placed to document the huge variety of Chinese breakfast foods and to break down any barriers to Chinese cooking, making the recipes as accessible as possible. Zao Fan: Breakfast of China is his third book after SymmetryBreakfast: Cook Love Share (2016) named one of the Guardian's best food books of the year, and Eat Like a Local: Shanghai (2019). He lives in Bologna with his husband.