THE food scene in Shanghai this year was filled with interesting trends and a few unfortunate scandals that reminded the public to take care in ordering food.

From neighborhood cafés to sidewalk snack stalls, new places to eat sprang up, reinforcing the city’s image for culinary pleasures.

Food festivals and fairs attracted some of the top chefs in the city to share their menus of gastronomic delights.

Smartphones are changing public eat­ing habits. They allow cashless purchase of food and drink anytime, anywhere, and have spawned a new industry of meals ordered online and delivered to the doorstep.

Exciting developments in the food and beverage industry were periodically marred by the outbreak of food quality scandals, keeping the public wary about what they buy where.

HOTPOT has always been a favorite in Chinese dining. Spicy versions from Sichuan Province and the city of Chongqing have long dominated center table. But in 2015, the most popular hotpot in Shanghai wasn’t a cauldron of hot chilli peppers. Diners preferred the fresh beef hotpot style from the area of Chaoshan in southern China.

Harking to Cantonese cuisine, the philosophy of a Chaoshan hotpot is to preserve the original flavor and taste of the ingredients. The soup base is made from beef bones without excessive seasonings. Diners can choose what cuts of meat they want to cook in the hotpot and the sauces they want for dipping.

This trend toward a milder, fresher hotpot was almost an overnight sensation in Shanghai. Diners were so enthusiastic about the new hotpot version that they were willing to wait for hours to get a table at the more popular restaurants. Restaurants like Holy Cow and Zuo Ting You Yuan claim their beef is flown in daily and they limit cooking to the meat from only one cow a day. That means you have to get there early if you want the most popular cuts. Both restaurants have glassed areas that allow diners to watch butchers slicing up the fresh meet and provide diagrams of a cow’s anatomy to show where cuts come from.

Coffee culture keeps expanding in China. International coffee chains like Starbucks and Costa are now regarded as “fast food” choices in coffee. More people are turning to specialty boutique cafés that offer different kinds of beans and brewing techniques.

One method that seems to be capturing a lot of attention is hand drip coffee. One of the cafes successful in promoting it is Seesaw Coffee, which uses premium beans. Seesaw Coffee opened its first shop inside the Jing’an Design Center in 2012. It now has three outlets.

Even Starbucks, trying to capture new trends, launched a cold brew last summer. The chain claims it takes 20 hours to slowly extract the brew in a low temperature environment.

Though coffee places proliferate, traditional tea is making a comeback. Many teahouses have opened in the past few years as people give up unhealthy drinks and rediscover the pleasure of taking time out to enjoy a good pot of pu’er.

Teabags are passé. Boutique teahouses brew quality teas in the old-fashioned way. The taste is worth it.

Icha, a very small yet sophisticated tea shop in Xintiandi, serves a variety of teas in brewing styles ranging from cold brew to classic hot tea. This beverage shop also makes milk teas using Chinese tea instead of the more common English breakfast or Earl Grey varieties of British black teas. Here you can find milk teas made with tie guanyin, or iron Buddha, as well as Wuyi tea.

Another tea shop chain is Vital Tea, created by Element Fresh, using Chinese tea brewed with original leaves. These outlets also offer an interesting menu of herbal and fruity teas, served in special paper cups that filter out the ingredients as you sip.

Salads are a mainstay on menus throughout Shanghai as people seek healthier, less fattening diets. Instead of the usual bowls of noodles or rice topped with meat and cooked vegetables, many lunch-goers are choosing bowls of crispy lettuce and fresh ingredients.

The proliferation of new salad shops offers creative twists on traditional fare. It’s no longer just the classic Caesar or tuna salad, but rather customized versions with healthier ingredients like quinoa and low-calorie dressings.

Meal Salad opened three new outlets in 2015. Its menu includes combinations like tequila prawns quinoa salad and baby carrots and chicken coix seed salad.

Max & Salad, which opened three stores this year alone, also offers a buffet-style menu that allows diners to create their own salads from an array of fresh and healthy ingredients.

Gucci Café opened at the iapm mall this year, continuing a trend of high-profile names getting into the food and beverage business.

Among the popular venues is the Vivienne Westwood Café in the K11 Art Mall, which opened last April. It’s adjacent to a Vivienne Westwood store and features tableware with the brand’s iconic Saturn-shaped logo. But the food and coffee? Well, the quality is pretty average compared with similar cafés.

In Xintiandi, long lines have formed at the Line Friends Café & Store since it opened last summer. Line’s Brown Bear and Cony Bunny characters are placed outside the café, and inside there’s also a store selling related products alongside the coffee and desserts.

The mugs, cups, plates and even napkins used at the café all bear Line caricatures.

This autumn, South Korean cosmetics brand Innisfree opened the three-story Innisfree Green Café at one of the best locations in Shanghai — Nanjing Road E. The café’s signature menu beverages and desserts are mostly derived from green tea.

These luxury brand cafes rely on their fame and logos to pull in customers. Food and drink often play second fiddle.

Michelin-starred restaurants and chefs are always highly prized by the public. Nowadays, Shanghai residents can enjoy menus prepared by top chefs without having to leave the city.

Savour, one of the best food festivals in Asia, came to Shanghai for the first time in October, bringing chefs who included Mads Refslund, founder of the famous Noma restaurant in Denmark; Laurent Peugeot of Le Charlemagne in France; Alvin Leung of Bo Innovation in Hong Kong; and Manjunath Mural from the Song of India.

Apart from the food festival, other top Michelin chefs, including Giancarlo Perbellini, Richard Ekkebus and Akrame Benallal, have also visited hotels in Shanghai to serve up degustation menus.

Smartphone payment has revolutionized how checks are paid.

Cash and credit cards are being replaced by simple bar codes on Alipay and WeChat.

This two platforms are working with business owners to offer random discounts when people choose online payment. From supermarkets to cafes, consumers can now use their phones to make quick payments.

By combing payment and communication functions, some operators have opened food delivery businesses in Shanghai.

Like One Way CATE, a lunch-delivery service that operates only in the Jing’an Temple area. It offers healthy lunchboxes that claim to use more than 15 ingredients to balance nutrition. Customers have to place their orders before 10am, and deliveries start an hour later.

WeChat platform also hosts various shops and individual businesses that sell food, beverage and other products. Most shops on the platform require full payment up front.