As an important part of China's intangible cultural heritage, Xiuyan shadow puppetry culture is a traditional art form with strong regional characteristics. It has not only exerted a profound influence on domestic and foreign art in terms of aesthetics and decoration but also demonstrated unique academic value in historical changes and current difficulties. With the development of technology and the progress of the times, traditional shadow puppetry art faces the impact of modern film and television as well as popular entertainment activities, and its inheritance and development have encountered unprecedented challenges. Therefore, the innovation and development of shadow puppetry culture and art have become particularly important, necessitating the dissemination of this traditional culture through new expression techniques. Starting from the origin and development of shadow puppetry culture, we deeply explore the artistic characteristics of shadow puppetry cultural elements and fully tap into the modeling features of shadow puppetry art. The research focuses on the formal beauty of shadow puppetry art, the aesthetic beauty of engraved lines, and the content beauty of plots, aiming to explore the potential applications of shadow puppetry cultural elements in catering space design. By incorporating these elements into catering space design, the space can not only possess cultural heritage but also highlight spiritual connotations, realizing a catering space design with ethnic characteristics and a timeless theme, and providing new forms and inspiration for the expression of catering space design.