How can "ambience-driven" restaurants become a new variable in the market?
As more and more restaurants are seen and loved on Douyin, business growth and brand awareness follow. A "more interesting" local life ecosystem is also taking shape.
"Small World Desktop Food Theater" is a restaurant featuring a desktop food theater. On the business front, sales from the Douyin platform account for about one-third of its total. "Now people have more imagination and demands for dining experiences and are eager to explore new ones. Douyin's content can pique users' interest and generate expectations. It serves as a bridge between us and our target customers," said a representative from the restaurant.
According to Su Kun, the co-founder of "Warehouse No. 3 - Creative Chinese Cuisine," "Douyin can quickly amplify our visual experience. Word-of-mouth from users alone can make our restaurant known to domestic and even overseas customers." This is particularly evident in the Shanghai New World and Lujiazui branches. During peak hours after 8 p.m., foreign customers sometimes account for half of the diners. "One day, out of 49 tables at the New World branch, 30 were occupied by foreigners," Su Kun added.
The unique store style of "Warehouse No. 3 - Creative Chinese Cuisine"
The common thread behind these success stories is that "emotional appeal" and "experience" have become new factors that today's customers value more when choosing a restaurant. This also presents a significant opportunity for Douyin in the local life service sector. For Douyin's local life service, how can it turn every "emotional appeal" on the platform into real actions and make the ecological chain more transparent?
The "Heart - Stirring Restaurant List" is an emerging answer. On September 23, the second issue of the Douyin Local Life Service Heart - Stirring Restaurant List for 2025 was officially released. The list now covers 101 cities, up from 40 in the first half of the year, with a total of 3,300 restaurants making the cut.
This is the second time the Douyin Local Life Service Heart - Stirring Restaurant List has been released this year. Consumers' "emotional triggers" are constantly changing, and an ever - evolving list is undoubtedly a good way to "grasp" and "present" trends. By releasing the list twice a year, Douyin Local Life Service seems to have found its rhythm.
In the era of ambiance, Douyin uses "emotional appeal" to gain a foothold in local life
What changes will we experience when the simple act of "eating" becomes an important source of emotional value?
Sometimes, a restaurant like a "stage of light, shadow, and sound" can meet our expectations for an immersive audio - visual experience. Sometimes, it serves as a "portal" to escape from anxiety. Or, it can be an "aesthetic backdrop" for self - expression.
As a diner mentioned in a CBNData survey, "I really enjoy discovering and experiencing the ambiance of different restaurants. For me, dining is not just about filling my stomach but also a chance to relax and explore. I'll specifically visit a place for its unique decoration, nice music, or a healing atmosphere."
The era of ambiance has quietly arrived. While "tasty food" remains the most fundamental requirement for consumers, the meaning and demands that diners attach to restaurants are becoming more diverse. The essence of choosing a restaurant has turned into a two - way pursuit of ambiance and feeling.
The "2025 Ambiance Dining Trend Insight" report jointly released by Douyin Local Life Service and CBNData shows that "good ambiance," "delicious food," and "excellent service" are the top three factors that generate consumers' expectations for a restaurant. In the past six months, the total views of "ambiance restaurants" content on Douyin reached 14 billion, with a total interaction volume of 250 million. 37% of diners have higher expectations for restaurant ambiance than before.
Behind this, a restaurant is no longer just a place for filling the stomach. It now caters to a wider range of psychological needs, from the "sensory level" of direct visual and taste experiences, to the "emotional level" of soothing loneliness and anxiety, and to the "meaning level" of establishing spiritual coordinates and seeking identity. All these have become important parts of the dining experience and the value of a restaurant.
The consumer decision - making process has changed. But is the current information supply in line with the public's selection needs? A consumer from Hangzhou, when talking about the difficulty of choosing a restaurant, said, "Many highly - rated restaurants are just so - so, and most recommendations are the same." The recent trend of "young people's reverse check - ins" also reflects that the existing selection system fails to meet new demands.
This means that on the platform level, there is no dominant perception in "experience - based consumption." Releasing the "Heart - Stirring Restaurant List" regularly is a crucial move for Douyin Local Life Service to seize the opportunity and build a user - centric mindset.
Douyin is a platform where consumers share their latest experiences and express their current preferences. This allows it to stay at the forefront of understanding user needs. When restaurants achieve success on Douyin through unique scenes, experiences, and ambiance, the "Heart - Stirring Restaurant List," as a part of Douyin Local Life Service, is also evolving, keeping up with real - world trends and reaching a broader audience.
On the one hand, the list is covering more areas. More importantly, as the second release this year, the new list in September indicates that the "Heart - Stirring Restaurant List" has established a semi - annual release rhythm. Its significance lies in that Douyin, as a natural insight field, is constantly calibrating new trends in experience - based consumption through the list, conveying consumers' most important needs and enabling merchants to keep up with the trend.
For example, when the latest issue of the Heart - Stirring Restaurant List was released, Douyin Local Life Service and CBNData jointly identified four ambiance dining trends, making the emerging "new trends" clearer:
Oriental Aesthetics: Deeply integrate Chinese philosophy, poetic charm, and intangible cultural heritage skills with modern life or dining styles to create a cross - time cultural immersion and identity. Customers are not just having a meal but also experiencing an immersive Chinese cultural journey. Take "Xinjingxi" as an example. It uses Peking Opera as a cultural anchor, presenting a scene of "the curtain rising, gongs and drums sounding, and actors taking the stage" in the restaurant, allowing consumers to feel the connection between Beijing - style culture and the brand concept.
Wilderness and Nature: Integrate the dining table into a natural setting, often using courtyard and garden elements to create a green oasis. The food focuses on natural, organic ingredients and health - preserving qualities, allowing diners to experience a healing atmosphere of slow dining surrounded by mountains, rivers, and greenery. For instance, "Small World Desktop Food Theater" combines stories, technology, and food to create the first immersive "desktop food theater" concept in China. Diners feel like they are in a fairy - tale world while dining, making the experience more interesting.
Relaxed and Trendy: Use neon lights and other elements to create a relaxed atmosphere, covering dining scenarios such as "sober drinking alone," "romantic dates," and "swinging dinners." Often in the form of restaurants and bistros, it offers a trendy and stress - relieving dining experience for urban workers and young people. "Miao Tangzhu Spicy Grilled Fish" is a representative. It targets young consumers, providing an immersive "grilled fish + social" experience, allowing young people to have a good time without changing venues.
Future - Forward: Adopt a space - themed or high - tech style, creating a futuristic dining scene through industrial - style renovations (such as old warehouses) or high - tech devices (such as anti - gravity food delivery systems). With elements like cyber lighting and metal machinery, it offers diners a novel and high - tech dining experience. Take "Warehouse No. 3 - Creative Chinese Cuisine," which has opened more than 20 branches across the country. With its large area, full - experience space, and a variety of cuisines, it resembles a "super - market" in a future dimension. Its Shanghai New World branch is even called a "white - themed crystal palace" by netizens.
From the platform's perspective, this proactive and insightful approach will naturally encourage users to develop the habit of "checking the Heart - Stirring Restaurant List when looking for a restaurant" and prompt merchants to include making it onto the list in their annual business plans. As a result, the retention rate of Douyin's local life service will increase.
By leveraging its platform - based insights to present the most experiential restaurants to a wide range of users, the "Heart - Stirring Restaurant List" is a significant move for Douyin Local Life Service, bringing about major changes to the entire ecosystem. The platform's value is no longer just a signpost to a known destination but has transformed into a deeper symbiotic force.
Behind the "Heart - Stirring Restaurant List," the local life ecosystem is being reshaped
In the local life service sector, Douyin has emerged as a disruptor, quickly establishing its own taste and ecosystem.
Content has always been the core of Douyin. On Douyin, restaurants with unique experiences and those that exceed expectations have their own "volunteer promoters" and "wow moments" that trigger social sharing. The "2025 Ambiance Dining Trend Insight" report states that 55% of users have actively shared or recommended a restaurant due to an unexpected "surprise moment."
The impact of sharing is immediate. In the past six months, 49% of diners were "influenced" by the tempting close - up shots of food in short videos or live - streams, and 59% were "influenced" by the immersive experience content. Meanwhile, Douyin has a higher penetration rate than other platforms among diners who are "easily influenced by ambiance content" and have a "high tendency to collect and purchase group - buying deals after being influenced." This means that Douyin plays a more prominent role in the process from "personal emotional appeal" to "group influence."
The manager of the courtyard private - dining brand "He Mu THE HOME • Siheyuan" said, "The beauty of He Mu is quiet and needs to be savored. Our initial concern was how to find like - minded people in the noisy information age. Douyin Local Life Service has solved this problem. Its powerful recommendation ability acts like an accurate 'guide'."
Now, with the "Heart - Stirring Restaurant List," this recommendation ability is further highlighted. A notable detail is that the evaluation weight of the list is shifting towards content interaction data, which will encourage merchants to showcase their features through content. In the latest list, the proportion of likes has been added to the "Heart - Stirring Index," further emphasizing consumers' preferences.
It should be noted that "ambiance" is an abstract concept, and the meaning of "heart - stirring" is complex. The logic of the "Heart - Stirring Restaurant List" goes a step further, making "predictive" recommendations based on the accumulation of consumers' interests and consumption habits, and quantifying the "experience" through the Heart - Stirring Index.
Looking back, before Douyin started releasing the "Heart - Stirring Restaurant List," the consumption decision - making process dominated by ambiance and experience was already underway. All parties in the ecosystem were trying to keep up with the trend. Merchants used videos to showcase various gameplay and scene experiences, and Douyin, with its powerful recommendation ability, helped restaurants with unique experiences gain more visibility. However, these scattered efforts failed to form a systematic effect.
The "Heart - Stirring Restaurant List" is like the "final push," further stimulating the vitality of every participant in the ecosystem and turning the ripples of "experience - based consumption" into a wave. The list directly presents the most interesting offerings to users and provides merchants with a clearer reference. The matching between supply and demand becomes more precise.
In the ancient Chinese classic "Lüshi Chunqiu," it is said that "when the main rope of a fishing net is lifted, all the meshes open." In the new local life ecosystem, the Douyin Local Life Service "Heart - Stirring Restaurant List" is like that main rope.
In this ecosystem, merchants, the platform, and users can do more and receive more definite feedback. The process of "starting with emotional appeal, moving on to expectations, immersing in the on - site experience, and achieving a perfect match" has truly formed a closed - loop.
Who can find the growth code on Douyin by leveraging the "Heart - Stirring Restaurant List"?
In this new era of local