These are the two great chilli cuisines of China and they are not variations on one theme. They use different chillies, prepared differently, to produce different sensations.
Sichuan: two sensations, not one#
麻 (má) is numbing and 辣 (là) is hot, and Sichuan cooking is defined by holding the two together. The numbness comes from the Sichuan peppercorn (花椒, huājiāo), which is not a peppercorn and not related to chilli — it is the husk of a citrus-family berry, and it produces a cool tingling on the lips and tongue that many first-timers mistake for an allergic reaction.
The chilli side comes in processed forms: chilli oil (红油, hóngyóu), broad-bean chilli paste (豆瓣酱, dòubànjiàng), dried chillies fried whole, and pickled chillies. The result is oily, aromatic and layered.
Sichuan cooks talk about seven basic tastes — numbing, hot, salty, sweet, sour, bitter and fragrant — combined into dozens of named flavour profiles. Fish-fragrant (鱼香, yúxiāng) contains no fish. Strange-flavour (怪味, guàiwèi) is a deliberate balancing act. Not all of it is even spicy.
Hunan: chilli, and more of it#
Hunan cooking — 湘菜 (xiāngcài) — uses no Sichuan peppercorn to speak of, so there is no numbing layer to distract from the heat. It leans on fresh chillies and on 剁椒 (duòjiāo), chopped chillies salted and fermented into a coarse red relish, which is the province's signature. Steamed fish head under a blanket of duojiao is the dish to order.
The chillies are used with far less oil than in Sichuan, which is why the heat arrives more directly. Smoked and cured meats — bacon, sausage, dried fish — are the other pillar, along with a pronounced sour-hot register.
Ask Chinese diners which is spicier and most will say Hunan. Ask which is more complex and most will say Sichuan. Both are right.
A third answer worth knowing#
If "spiciest" is really a question about intensity rather than chilli, Guizhou is the one to try. Its cooking pushes hardest into sourness and fermentation — sour-soup fish (酸汤鱼, suāntāng yú) built on fermented tomato and rice broth — and it is unlike anything served under the name Chinese food abroad.
Ordering around it#
- If the numbness is what you dislike, say 少麻 (shǎo má) — less numbing — rather than asking for the dish to be mild. That keeps the flavour and removes the tingle.
- If chilli is the problem, 微辣 (wēilà) is mildly spicy and 不辣 (bùlà) is not spicy. Be aware that a Hunan kitchen's idea of mild is not universal.
- Not everything in either cuisine is hot. Sichuan's sweet-water noodles, white-cooked pork and many of its soups are gentle, and asking a waiter for the non-spicy dishes on the menu is a completely normal request.
For the wider regional map and what falls outside the famous eight, see beyond the eight cuisines and the regional guide to Chinese cuisine.