Revisiting Zendaya and Tom Holland's Shanghai Food Trail: Noodle Shop, Tea House, and Vegetarian Restaurant

During their 2026 Shanghai promotional tour, Zendaya and Tom Holland visited three distinct dining spots in a single day, moving from a neighborhood noodle shop on Yandang Road in Huangpu District, to a traditional tea house inside Yu Garden, and finally to a refined vegetarian restaurant on Yuyuan Road — a route tracing a path from the everyday to the exquisite.

What did they order at Wei Xiang Zhai?

The pair's lunch spot was Wei Xiang Zhai, located at No. 14 Yandang Road, Huangpu District, Shanghai — a small neighborhood noodle shop where diners often queue or share tables with strangers during busy hours. The two ordered the signature sesame sauce noodles, accompanied by fried pork cutlet. Sesame sauce noodles are a common home-style noodle dish in Shanghai, and the shop offers no spacious seating, giving the meal itself a distinctly everyday feel — a contrast to the upscale restaurant settings often seen on typical promotional tours.

What did they drink at the tea house inside Yu Garden?

After lunch, the two headed to Balathe tea house inside Yu Garden. Yu Garden was first built in the Ming Dynasty, in the sixteenth century, and is now a nationally protected heritage site, with its architecture and water features preserving the layout of classic Jiangnan gardens. Balathe tea house is located at No. 218 Anren Street, inside Gate 7 of Yu Garden. The shop features a minimalist bar counter and focuses on traditional jasmine tea, offering both hand-brewed and cold-brew styles. Jasmine tea is a common scented tea in the Jiangnan region, made by infusing tea leaves with the aroma of jasmine blossoms. Balathe's approach blends this traditional tea with a modern bar-brewing style, giving the drink a fresh presentation within the setting of a historic garden.

The Final Stop of the Day: the Refined Vegetarian Restaurant Fu He Hui

The last stop of the day was the Yuyuan Road branch of Fu He Hui, a restaurant centered on refined vegetarian cuisine, known for its seasonal set menus, Zen-inspired interior design, and teas paired specifically with each dish. Fu He Hui's dishes blend traditional and contemporary Chinese culinary techniques; past menu items have included osmanthus honey lily with passion fruit foam, mushroom rice, and lotus root prepared three ways. The names of these dishes themselves reflect the restaurant's careful attention to ingredient preparation and presentation, using plant-based ingredients to simulate or transform layered textures and flavor combinations.

As the final stop of the day, Fu He Hui stands in clear contrast to the neighborhood noodle shop visited at lunchtime: on one end, a humble noodle dish eaten while queuing and sharing tables; on the other, a vegetarian set menu attentive to spatial atmosphere and seasonal ingredients. Viewed together, the two reveal the coexistence of different facets within Shanghai's dining landscape — from alleyway noodle shops to refined dining, each serving different settings and rhythms.

Overall, this itinerary spanned three categories — noodles, tea, and refined vegetarian cuisine — linking the Ming-dynasty heritage garden of Yu Garden with the contemporary vegetarian space on Yuyuan Road within a single day's journey. For readers interested in Shanghai's dining scene, this route offers specific restaurant names and addresses rather than rankings or reviews; actual menu offerings and details should be confirmed with each establishment at the time of visit.