An interpretation is given of the Shintani descent from the points of a connected algebraic group over a finite field to its group of points over a subfield in terms of a Shintani descent between two different rational structures over the same finite field, using restriction of scalars. From this a generalization is deduced of a result of Gyoja's on the Shintani descent of Deligne–Lusztig characters of a finite group of Lie type.