At the table
Lift portions of cooked fish onto your plate with serving chopsticks or a serving spoon. Separate the flesh from the bones and eat in small bites.
Fish bones can remain in the flesh. The tray and sauce may stay very hot; let each portion cool before eating.
Choose the sauce and chili level before ordering. Fermented-bean and numbing-hot versions differ; vegetables, tofu, broth and cooking fats vary.
GET TO KNOW THE DISH
What goes into it?
Explore some key ingredients below. Preparations may use additional seasonings and ingredients.
Sauces can feature fermented soybeans or other piquant seasonings.
Typical ingredients
Recipes vary by restaurant.
How does it taste?
Versions include numbing-hot or fermented-bean seasoning.
- Chili heat
- Texture
- In the representative charcoal-grilled version, the fish is finished in a low-simmering sauce; the exterior is lightly charred and fragrant while the flesh stays tender. Texture varies with fish and cooking time.
- How it’s made
- Salt the fish, roast it, then stew with seasonings.
Sauces can feature fermented soybeans or other piquant seasonings.
A CONNECTION TO PLACE
Origin & regional roots
Associated with Chongqing.
Ask if they have it first
请问你们有万州烤鱼吗？
Do you have this item?
A LITTLE SOMETHING TO READ
Story & history
From salt and pickles to Wanzhou grilled fish
Wanzhou grilled fish brings together salting, grilling and simmering. Its Three Gorges setting comes through in the pickled ginger, chilies, sour vegetables and garlic often cooked with the fish, echoing a regional tradition of salting and preserving food. Shops spread across Wanzhou in the 1980s and 1990s as cooks kept adjusting the seasonings. A local tale places the earliest grilled fish during a Song-era siege, but that remains a legend rather than a verified origin.
