Guanqian Street

Guanqian Street — literally "in front of the temple" — has been the commercial heart of Suzhou since at least the Tang dynasty. The "temple" of the name is the Xuanmiao Temple, a Daoist temple complex with a continuous history from the 3rd century CE; the present main hall is a Song dynasty structure (1179) and is one of the most important surviving Song-era wooden buildings in southern China.

The street's commercial character has been preserved through successive renovations. Many of the brand-name Suzhou shops on the street have continuous histories of a century or more — Caizhizhai (sweets, founded 1845), Lu Gao Jian (barbecued meat, 1646), Sanxiangzhai (traditional medicine, 1889), Songhelou (restaurant, 1737, the source of the recipe for Suzhou-style sweet-and-sour Mandarin fish that travelled to Beijing under the Qianlong Emperor).

Songhelou itself remains operating in a heritage-renovated restaurant on Taijian Lane just off Guanqian Street. The restaurant serves the canonical Suzhou banquet repertoire — squirrel-style Mandarin fish, beggar's chicken, white-cut river prawns, salted-pork fragrant rice — to a high standard. Reservations recommended for groups; lunch service typically has shorter queues than dinner.

The pedestrianisation of Guanqian Street, completed in the 1990s, made it the principal shopping destination for tourist visitors. Locals tend to use the cross streets and alleys behind the main axis for everyday business.