Because of its long development as a culture, the cuisine of Xi'an is extensive as well. It is the representative of food of Northwestern China. The most well known local food is the Xianese snack, which consists of both traditional food of the Han Chinese and Hui ethnic minority. Hui-style snacks feature beef and mutton because the Hui people, being Muslims, do not eat pork. Baked beef and mutton, buns with beef, and other such regional dishes that are usually spicy in nature and incorporate a lot of beef and mutton ingredients. Han-style snacks are popular across China, consisting of meat with pancakes and noodles. Cool noodles, made of rice or wheat, taste spicy and great. A historical famous Xi'an dish is pancakes and mutton soup, which can be traced back to the Song Dynasty.

Xi'an Dumplings Banquet is renowned throughout the city. It has already served dozens of Presidents who came to Xi'an, including Bill Clinton. Basically, 32 different types of dumplings for each customer, but if one would like to taste more, there are also a lot options, more than 120 types are waiting for diners.

There is also a famous cultural noodle dance when a chef, instead of rolling out noodles, waves a long strip of dough around in a dance before cooking the noodles.