If you have eaten at a HAIDILAO restaurant, you probably remember the service before you remember the food — the hot towels, the free snacks while you wait, the person who shows up to refold your napkin every time you leave the table.
That reputation was built deliberately, and it started somewhere much smaller than you would guess.
It began with four tables
HAIDILAO opened in March 1994 in Jianyang, a city in Sichuan Province. Zhang Yong, then a factory worker with no restaurant background, started it with three other founders and about 8,000 yuan between them. The first location had four tables.
Sichuan is the birthplace of mala hot pot — the numbing, chili-forward style built on beef tallow, broad bean paste, and Sichuan peppercorn. It is also an extremely competitive place to open a hot pot restaurant. Everyone there already knows what good hot pot tastes like.
So the founders competed on something else: how customers were treated. Free manicures while you wait. Complimentary snacks and drinks. Servers trained to notice things before you ask. Noodle dancers who pull hand-stretched noodles at your table. It sounds like a gimmick until you realize it worked — the service became the reason people chose HAIDILAO over the restaurant next door, and it is still the brand's signature three decades later.
Today HAIDILAO operates restaurants across Asia, North America, Europe, and the Middle East.
How restaurant hot pot became something you can buy
Running hot pot restaurants at scale means one thing above all: the broth has to taste the same in every city, every night. That is a manufacturing problem, not a cooking problem — it takes standardized recipes, controlled sourcing, and industrial production.
Solving that problem is what created the packaged products. Once you can make a beef tallow base that tastes identical in a thousand kitchens, you can also put it in a bag and sell it to someone cooking at home.
That is the whole idea behind the retail range: the same flavor profiles the restaurants are built on, made shelf-stable so you can run hot pot on a Tuesday night without booking a table.
Who actually makes it
The HAIDILAO-branded soup bases, dipping sauces, and instant meals are produced by Yihai International, a Chinese manufacturer specializing in compound seasonings — hot pot bases, Chinese cooking sauces, and convenience foods.
Compound seasoning is a narrower discipline than it sounds. A hot pot base is not one ingredient; it is dozens — chili varieties, fermented broad bean paste, Sichuan peppercorn, rendered beef tallow, aromatics, fermented soybean — balanced so the result is consistent bag after bag. That specialization is why a packet from a store shelf tastes like the restaurant rather than like a generic chili paste.
YIHAI (US) Food Inc.
YIHAI (US) Food Inc. is the official US operation for HAIDILAO-brand retail products. We bring the soup bases, dipping sauces, self-heating hot pots, Cup Rice, and instant meals to American shelves and to this store at yihaius.com.
Every product page here carries the full ingredient list and allergen information in English, because we would rather you know exactly what is in the bag before you buy it.
Where to start if you're new
Three different entry points, depending on how much effort you feel like putting in:
- Zero effort, no kitchen needed — a self-heating hot pot. It cooks itself with cold water in about 15 minutes. Read how to use one first.
- Hot water and eight minutes — Cup Rice or an instant vermicelli cup.
- The real thing, at your table — a hot pot soup base and fresh ingredients. Our beginner's guide to cooking hot pot at home covers the ratio, what to buy, and how to build a dipping sauce.
Not sure which format fits your situation? We compared all three in Self-Heating Hot Pot vs. Cup Rice vs. Instant Ramen.
Start here
The three products that best represent what the brand does — one of each format.
Browse the full HAIDILAO range →
Frequently asked questions
Is HAIDILAO a restaurant or a food brand?
Both. It started as a hot pot restaurant chain in 1994 and now also has a retail line of soup bases, sauces, and instant meals you can cook at home.
Are the retail soup bases the same as what the restaurants use?
They are built on the same flavor profiles — the same mala, tomato, mushroom, and clear broth styles the restaurants are known for — formulated and packaged for home cooking.
Where are HAIDILAO products made?
The retail products are produced in China by Yihai International. Country of origin and full ingredient lists are printed on every package and listed on each product page.
Is this the official HAIDILAO store in the US?
Yes. yihaius.com is operated by YIHAI (US) Food Inc., the official US operation for HAIDILAO-brand retail products.