The first bite is a velvet fire: rich beef tallow, dried chili, then the numbing buzz of Sichuan peppercorns dancing across the tongue. On a lantern-lit hillside under loquat trees, a group of Vietnamese hairdressers have just discovered their new obsession.

"This is unbelievable," one whispered, chopsticks already reaching for another mouthful.

In mid-April, more than 20 visitors from Hanoi, Vietnam's capital, made a pilgrimage to Nanshan Mountain's Pipayuan Shiweixian Hotpot Restaurant in Chongqing — a 30,000-square-meter terraced citadel of the hotpot world, which holds a Guinness World Record with more than 800 tables and 5,851 seats.

As dusk fell, golden lights outlined the wooden pavilions, and the scent of the bubbling beef-tallow broth drifted from terraces climbing over 100 meters high.

The Vietnamese visitors gathered around four tables, dipping shrimp paste, beef, tofu skin and mushrooms into dual-flavor pots, with the spicy side delivering the full mala (spicy and numbing) experience.

"It's truly overwhelming," said Do Duc Anh, 39. "You taste the food and see the whole landscape. It's like eating inside a dream."

But Pipayuan is just one stage in the city's "Hotpot Broadway", which has grown spectacularly against the backdrop of the Yangtze River and soaring green mountains.

Here, dining is steeped in the vibrant, down-to-earth bustle of everyday life.

Nearby, Xianlongjing Hotpot Park sets 600 tables among lotus ponds, bridges and pavilions. At night, the traditional folk spectacle of datiehua, or molten iron fireworks, showers the lake in dramatic performances. As the sparks fly overhead, diners dip on-site harvested lotus roots into the bubbling broth.

For a cooler dining experience, the Underground City Hotpot Restaurant repurposes a wartime air-raid shelter with 4,500 sq m of tunnels, which can seat 1,300 people at a constant 25 C.

Elsewhere, Chongqing offers more unusual places to enjoy hotpot. Set on a rooftop, the Mujiuge Hotpot Restaurant in the Jiefangbei commercial block serves its nine-grid pots near a secondhand bookstore. At the Meixin Wine Town in Fuling district, diners can soak in a swimming pool while dipping into bubbling cauldrons — the ultimate summer flex in a city famously known as one of the country's "four furnaces", where summer temperatures routinely soar above 40 C.

Back on the hillside in Pipayuan, eight tables were filled with a Surabaya-based delegation of more than 40 Indonesian entrepreneurs. After touring factories to explore China's development and latest technology, they had been drawn to the eatery by Douyin videos of its spectacular setting.

"It looked like a fantasy," said Fabiola Yonita Santoso, head of the delegation.

At the foot of the hill, Dave O'Toole from Dublin, Ireland, and Eve Adams from Seattle in the United States — a long-distance couple finally reunited — photographed their hotpot moment under the lanterns.

"My hometown is the birthplace of the Guinness World Records," O'Toole said with a laugh. "This is amazing."

Pipayuan manager Gan Yuanchuang said the restaurant now hosts many foreign diners daily, mostly from Southeast Asia. During the loquat season, which runs from late April to early May, diners pick the cool fruit to soothe palates scorched by spicy broth.

The roots of hotpot stretch back to 19th-century river porters, who simmered offal with chili. By the 1930s, two local entrepreneurs, known as the Ma brothers, had opened Chongqing's first hotpot eatery, bringing hotpot from the dockside into a proper restaurant. Today, Chongqing has nearly 20,000 hotpot enterprises and around 40,000 restaurants, with 160,000 of China's 500,000 hotpot spots tracing their lineage back to the city.

The flavor of hotpot has reached over 50 countries and regions. Locals believe that the fiery nature dispels the damp mountain air, while the unhurried, hours-long meals embody the city's inclusive, communal spirit — friendships forged in steam and spice.

Whether on a lantern-lit hillside, floating among lotuses, deep inside a cave, above neon skylines, or bobbing in a swimming pool, a trip to Chongqing without dipping into its bubbling, numbing cauldrons — the city's culinary soul — would be unthinkable.

Hotpot tips

For an authentic Chongqing experience, start with the classic nine-grid pot — it allows you to control cooking temperatures and easily retrieve different ingredients.

Must-try ingredients include fresh ox tripe, goose intestine, pork aorta, tender beef slices, shrimp paste, filefish and bamboo shoots.

For those still building their spice tolerance, a dual-flavor pot (spicy and mild) is a perfect choice, with heat levels ranging from extra spicy and medium to mild or just a hint.