Why Haidilao？

In China, Haidilao represents a system in which service and emotional labour are capitalised. It receives over 4.15 billion visits annually, maintains an average table-turnover rate of 4.1 per day, and has more than 180 million registered members. Value there is produced not through food alone, but through the experience of being cared for, sustained by labour that is made to appear effortless.

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In London, the same name materialises through a different logic. The restaurant introduces a two-hour all-you-can-eat structure, where time replaces service and where “whether one gets their money’s worth” becomes the measure of value. Users on RED describe the food as processed and excessively oily, while public UK hygiene records show that one London location was formally assessed with a Food Hygiene Rating of 0, the lowest possible score. As a result, discussion does not centre on taste, but on deviation, on how unlike itself Haidilao has become.