![]() ![]() ![]() In recent years, a growing emphasis has been placed on tourism experiences and attractions related to food. Despite the increasing diversities of urban foodways, “culinary Occidentalism” as well as “culinary nationalism” still strongly influence the meanings of consuming foreign foods in Asia’s global cities. Cosmopolitan foodscapes build upon colonial spatial legacies and postcolonial imaginaries. In both Shanghai and Tokyo recently booming international restaurant scenes are shaped by decades of colonial and postcolonial encounters. ![]() Global city culinary culture is shown to be influenced both by local urban histories and by transnational cultural politics, as Asian global cities compete in terms of their attractiveness for investors, or their “urban soft power.” “Culinary soft power,” or the culinary reputation of a city, has become an important element of this “urban soft power.” To understand the similarities and considerable differences in the restaurant scenes of Shanghai and Tokyo, we must also consider historical contexts. Although investments and increased wealth create the conditions for development of international restaurant scenes in cities, the advent of a cosmopolitan and lively urban food culture is not an inevitable outcome of economic globalization. This essay traces this development by focusing on the interaction between transnational flows of people and resources and local cultural politics in two of Asia’s global cities, Shanghai and Tokyo. A new global culinary geography of high cuisine has developed centered on global cities.
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