China’s Restaurants Are Picking Up. Wine’s Comeback Is More Complicated.

China’s restaurant sector showed modest growth in 2025, according to official data. Yet behind the headline numbers, wine’s performance in the on-trade channel – long a key consumption venue – appears increasingly uneven across regions and price segments.

On February 28, China’s National Bureau of Statistics released the Statistical Communiqué on the 2025 National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China, which indicated that consumer prices remained broadly stable during the year. Prices in the food, tobacco and alcohol category fell 0.7% year-on-year, with declines of 0.5% in urban areas and 1.2% in rural areas.

Meanwhile, China’s total retail sales of consumer goods reached 50.12 trillion yuan ($696 billion) in 2025, up 3.7% year-on-year. Within that figure, restaurant revenue totalled 5.7982 trillion yuan ($805 billion), marking a 3.2% increase from the previous year.

Revenue from large-scale catering enterprises – defined as restaurants with annual operating income of 2 million yuan ($280,000) or more – reached 1.6337 trillion yuan (US$227 billion), rising 2.0% year-on-year.

For the wine industry, these figures carry particular significance. Restaurants and bars remain one of the primary channels through which wine reaches consumers in China. Much of the wine imported into the country first enters on-trade venues, while some consumers who purchase wine through retail or group-buying channels also bring their own bottles to restaurants.

Against this backdrop, the question remains: what does a modest recovery in restaurant spending actually mean for wine?

To find out, Vino Joy News spoke with four wine operators active in the on-trade channel, representing different regions and business models, to understand how the market looks from the ground.

Fine dining still under pressure, but wine’s role is growing

Hong Boyong, CEO of Pran Cellar, a Shanghai- and Guangzhou-based importer specialising in Australian wines, said the restaurant sector remained relatively stable overall in 2025, although high-end dining continued to face pressure. 

“From feedback across the restaurant industry, the market appears broadly stable, but fine dining is definitely under pressure,” Hong said.

“Some of the upscale restaurants we work with have reported lower average spending per customer, and many have introduced more affordable set menus in order to maintain revenue.”

When it comes to wine sales, Hong observed a clear shift in demand. High-end wines are moving more slowly, while premium wines priced below 500 yuan (US$70) have performed relatively well in restaurant channels.

At the same time, wine itself is gaining greater importance within many restaurants’ business strategies.

“Whether it’s to improve profitability or to make a restaurant feel more professional and international, more restaurant owners are beginning to pay attention to wine,” he said.

“For us, the on-trade channel may not be extremely large in scale, but customer retention and activity are quite good. There is still plenty of room for the number of clients to grow.”

Shanghai’s on-trade channel shows signs of recovery

For some importers, the recovery is already visible – at least in certain cities.

China’s leading on-trade wine supplier EMW Fine Wines said its restaurant channel sales in Shanghai showed signs of rebound in 2025.

Juanita Yu, the company’s marketing director, said that based on EMW’s internal data, Shanghai recorded growth, while Beijing experienced a noticeable decline. Sales in the company’s western and southern regions were largely flat compared with 2024.

EMW works with more than 110 wineries and serves over 3,500 clients across China, giving it broad exposure to the restaurant market and making it a distribution partner for many international wineries.

Yu believes several factors contributed to Shanghai’s improvement.

“On the one hand, the city has become more open again and more foreigners have returned,” she said. “On the other hand, the stock market rally toward the end of the year also helped stimulate consumption to some extent.”

According to Yu, the restaurant formats performing best in Shanghai include bistros, Chinese restaurants and Japanese restaurants, particularly those with an average spend of 300 to 600 yuan (US$87) per customer.

“From our data, bistros and bars are performing particularly well,” she said. “Apart from Beijing, we have not seen clear declines in other regions.”

In terms of product categories, Champagne and value-for-money wines sold by the glass performed strongly, with New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc proving especially popular. In restaurants, these wines are typically priced at 300 to 500 yuan per bottle.

Lower-tier cities tell a different story

In smaller cities, however, the picture looks markedly different.

In Tangshan, the largest economy in Hebei province and a city heavily dependent on the steel industry, Dong Huaicheng, general manager of Medoc1855 Trading Co., Ltd., said the restaurant sector he deals with actually declined slightly in 2025, rather than growing.

Dong has spent years supplying premium wines to local restaurants and hotels. In his view, tighter enforcement of rules governing official spending has had a noticeable impact on dining activity.

“In our region the effect is quite obvious,” he said. “Not only government officials, but also employees of public institutions have reduced how often they dine out.”

A similar sentiment was echoed by Xu Xiaotong, general manager of Dijon Wine Cellar, who operates both a boutique wine business and a Western restaurant in the northeastern city of Fuxin.

Based on both his own business and conversations with peers, Xu said the restaurant sector has not experienced meaningful growth and may even be gradually weakening.

“Some small Chinese restaurants or fast-food outlets might perform slightly better at certain times, but it’s not a widespread trend,” Xu said. “I’ve even heard that milk tea shops are seeing declining sales.”

In his view, restaurants in third-tier cities have limited ability to drive wine consumption. The further down the market moves geographically, the more common it becomes for consumers to bring their own alcohol.

“I run a Western restaurant myself, and many customers know I have a wine cellar. They also know that the prices in the cellar are the same as those in the restaurant,” he said.

“Even so, wine sales remain fairly modest.”