Cashing in

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the latest craze is the restaurant Tai Sheng Yuan, which was the inspiration for the fictitious Zhi Zhen Yuan restaurant depicted in the drama. According to its staff, online sales rocketed 170 percent. Group-purchase orders had also soared by 240 percent.

Visitor numbers to the Fairmont Peace Hotel on the Bund, another landmark depicted in the TV series, have also been rising, as evidenced by the deluge of photos posted by Chinese social media users.

To take advantage of the fanfare surrounding the road, the hotel recently unveiled a new set menu comprising several dishes featured in the TV series. Despite costing 1,460 yuan ($204), dinner reservations for the two-person set meals were quickly snapped up.

An eatery selling Yunnan-style rice noodles has also jumped on the bandwagon by rolling out new set meals and incorporating elements from the show into their menus.

Online food delivery services have also reported that takeaway orders for meals featured in the TV drama have been soaring. For example, online orders of rice soup, a typical Shanghai dish made by soaking leftover rice in seafood broth, spiked 1.5 times on Meituan, a major e-commerce platform for food delivery.

Other Shanghai classics such as pork chops and rice cakes, have also been massively popular, with delivery orders for them soaring by 300 percent on Meituan.