Nightlife in Xiamen

Xiamen's bar scene skews toward craft beer and creative cocktails rather than dive bars or British-style pubs. The Shapowei district along the old harbor has the highest concentration of places worth your time. Small-batch breweries with their own labels. Bars built into converted warehouses where the exposed brick is doing real atmospheric work. Rooftop terraces that face the water. The university strip near Xiamen University runs hotter and cheaper, with beer towers and large communal tables that fill up early and stay full. Zhongshan Road, the main pedestrian shopping street, has bars of a more commercial variety, largely catering to domestic tourists and better suited for an early drink than a full evening. Worth noting: Chinese craft beer culture has arrived properly in Xiamen, and several Shapowei bars pour local brews that hold up well.

Xiamen does late-night food extremely well, which is one of the better things about a night out here. The city's Hokkien food culture means the street-food options after midnight are more interesting than in most Chinese coastal cities of similar size. The Zhongshan Road area and the stretch near the night market see vendors setting up from early evening and running well past midnight: oyster omelette cooked on flat iron griddles, satay noodles in a rich, slightly sweet broth, and freshwater rice noodles topped with seafood that gets cheaper as the evening progresses. Shapowei itself has a few late-night spots along the harbor path, mostly small Fujian-style operations that know their audience is coming from the bars nearby. The night market near Baishuijing is worth the short trip for anyone who ends up hungry around one in the morning.