A delicate prawn dish from Jean Georges
Shanghai on a plate
From delicious local dumplings to international fine-dining fare, the restaurant scene in Shanghai has never been better, finds a satisfied Brian Johnston.
Fast-paced and forward-looking, Shanghai is China’s most energetic city, and nowhere is its dynamism and spirit of adventure more apparent than in its restaurant scene. In the last decade, dining in Shanghai has changed out of all recognition. True, you can still buy bowls of noodles on street corners – thankfully – but in restaurants, trendy youngsters are likely to be munching on French fries while Shanghai’s nouveau riche splurge on fine-dining restaurants serving dishes from around the world, and fashionistas knock back lurid cocktails to a backdrop of neon-lit views. Big, brash and better than ever, dining in Shanghai is now the equal of that in any modern western metropolis.
By all means, start at street level: cheap and informal eats are everywhere. At stalls and corner restaurants across the city, you need only spend a few dollars to get popular snacks such as pork dumplings, egg pancakes, lamb skewers – grilled to order by Muslim immigrants from northwest China – and leek pies. You can get memorably good bowls of noodles and delicacies such as frogs’ legs in ginger or slices of roast duck on rice. But nothing beats xiao longbao, a Shanghai dumpling filled with a delicious broth that explodes into your mouth (or, if you aren’t careful, over your clothes) as you bite into it.
Executive chef Jeremy Leung from the Whampoa Club
Local snacks are wonderful, but you’ll have to head to a restaurant to try Shanghai cuisine at its best. Little-known in Australia, Shanghai food is really a branch of eastern-style cuisine, and features braised and stewed dishes rather than stir-fries as well as cold ‘drunken’ dishes marinated in wine, of which drunken chicken is the best known. The emphasis is on the freshness of the main ingredients rather than on heavy sauces and marinades. Freshwater fish is prominent, though expensive, and the much-loved local delicacy is hairy crab – known locally as duza ha, or in Mandarin, dazha xie, meaning crabs from the “big dam”. Duza ha is usually steamed and dipped in soy sauce and black rice vinegar with ginger. The Shanghainese like to wash down their meal with a sweetish, yellow rice wine known as huangjiu.
It isn’t hard to find superlative restaurants in Shanghai: the Chinese bring relatives and business partners to the city’s restaurants to impress them with lavish feasts. Many restaurants cover several floors, each floor offering menus at different price points. Foreigners are invariably directed to more expensive floors in the belief that they’re used to luxury, but there’s nothing to stop you joining locals on the cheaper (usually lower) floors, where you can expect a raucous din of happy diners.
If you’re after the best local flavours, head to Shanghai Uncle in the basement of the Bund Centre. Shanghai Uncle goes for modern versions of old Shanghai classics and inspired east-west fusion dishes, and is certainly some of the best Chinese food you’ll eat in town. Try the superlative crispy pork, traditional smoked fish and handmade noodles and, if you can afford the astronomical prices, a fresh lobster dish.
Elegant dumplings from Ai Mei Chinese Restaurant at Le Royal Méridien
For excellent Chinese comfort food in less formal surrounds, look no further than the queues outside Crystal Jade Restaurant in Xintiandi. Locals flock here for steamed dumplings, roast pork buns and spicy Sichuan noodles. The restaurant is reckoned to serve the best xiao longbao in Shanghai – in other words, in the known universe.
Villa du Lac, housed in an old colonial building, is also one of the city’s top restaurants for Shanghainese cuisine, as well as palace cuisine from the nearby city of Yangzhou, its light, clean flavours once reserved for royalty and court officials. Signature dishes include hand-cut tofu and drunken chicken; European-influenced desserts include egg tarts served with Longjing tea and snow-skin peach dumplings in champagne. The chef here, Justin Quek, hails from Singapore, and has an international reputation.
Many a world-class chef has been lured by Shanghai’s bright lights, and the Shanghainese love of trends and fashions. It all started along The Bund, where Art Deco and Neoclassical facades recall Shanghai’s heyday as a great trading port and international settlement in the early 20th century. The municipal government launched an enlightened program of restoration in the 1990s that has seen The Bund return to its former grandeur and bustle.
Poppyseed galettes from M on the Bund
M on the Bund was the first international restaurant to open here, in 1999 and, for some time, was the place to be seen in Shanghai. Its star has faded somewhat as newer competitors steal the limelight, but the Art-Deco elegance and wonderful views from the seventh floor are hard to beat, and the food can still reach superlative heights. Signature dishes are the slow-baked leg of lamb and pavlova – no surprise, really, as chef-owner Michelle Garnaut hails from Melbourne.
Next door, Three on the Bund is a seven-storey pleasure palace housing art galleries, luxury boutiques, a jazz club, a day spa and several restaurants of top international quality. These include French fare at Jean Georges, bistro fare at New Heights, and classic-meets-contemporary Shanghai cuisine at the Whampoa Club – try the tasting menu, and talk to the tea sommelier about choosing a matching tea. Another Australian chef, David Laris, is at the helm at Laris, with its emphasis on New World seafood dishes.
Given the high prices at Three on the Bund, you might expect serving sizes to be a bit more generous and service more suave. Nevertheless, dining at one of these trendy restaurants on The Bund is a quintessential Shanghai experience. If you really want to splash out, you can reserve the cupola on top of the building as a private dining room, and order from any of the restaurants on the floors below.
House smoked salmon from M on the Bund
Xintiandi is another trendy locale and the evening destination of choice for hip locals and expats alike. This upmarket area of little alleys and courtyards is an appealing blend of modernistic and faux old Chinese architecture, crammed with eateries and bars of all sorts, from hugely busy, German-style Biergartens to Tuscan pizzerias and chic post-modern venues serving the likes of green-pea cappuccino.
At Lan Na Thai, in a lovely old colonial mansion known as Face Building, delightful deep-fried soft-shell crab and divine papaya salads are served up to a mostly foreign clientele; on another floor, svelte guests recline on ‘opium beds’ in an Asian-style cocktail lounge. At Di Shui Dong, try the outstanding spicy regional Hunan cuisine: everything from chicken chilli hotpot to cumin pork spare-ribs is wonderful, even if it needs to be washed down with copious amounts of cold beer.
The wide, tree-lined avenue known as Hengshan Road, just a totter west, is another trendy spot lined with 1920s mansions, now converted into teahouses and restaurants. It’s also home to one of the city’s favoured music venues, O’Malleys. With an outdoor courtyard and cosy, Irish-pub style, O’Malleys serves up a good beer and Irish, British and American favourites – just the place to head for if you have a hankering for bangers and mash.
In the old days, this area was part of the French Concession. There’s still a nod to the glamour of these times at 1931 Bar & Restaurant, where waitresses are dressed in traditional qipao, or high-collared, tight-fitting silk dresses with side slits. This is the place for a drink and nibbles – fried dumplings, duck pancakes and noodles. Also worth a visit is the Art Salon, where Montmarte meets Shanghai: the walls are covered with local artworks; rickety tables and traditional Chinese-style chairs crowd every inch of floorspace. Sit elbow-to-elbow for some terrific homemade specialties – and feel free to purchase any of the artwork or furniture that catches your eye.
During the days of the settlements, the Chinese lived crammed into the old city; now, Shanghai’s historic heart has been redeveloped into an unabashed tourist theme town, jammed with souvenir shops and antiques markets. At its centre lies the fabulous Yu Garden and iconic Bridge of Nine Turnings, a zigzag bridge over a carp pool always packed with photo-snapping visitors. Stop by the venerable Huxinting Teahouse in the middle of the pond for a pastry or quail’s eggs with excellent green tea as you watch the passing hubbub.
You’ll also find fine fare at the Shanghai Classic Restaurant, which serves such local dishes as eight-treasure duck, stuffed with sticky rice, and deep-fried shrimps. The restaurant claims to have been around since 1875, though in its current guise, it is located on the second-floor atrium of a modern mid-range hotel.
Inside Laris at Three on the Bund
Occasionally, someone in this relentlessly advancing city actually looks to the past. If you’re after a coffee, avoid the ubiquitous Starbucks and head instead to Old China Hand Reading Room, with its Qing Dynasty furniture, old books, manual typewriters and beautiful photography, or to Old Film Café, where you can watch 1920s movies from China and Russia as you down your brew. Just the caffeine shot you’ll need before launching yourself into the frenzy of Shanghai once more.
Photography courtesy restaurants and hotels.
A beautifully presented dish from The Whampoa Club
Travel Facts
Getting there
Getting around
- Asiaquest Tours, phone 1800 144 738 or visit www.asiaquesttours.com.au
- CITS Travman Tours, phone 1800 338 007 or visit www.travman.com.au
- GAP Adventures, phone 1300 796 618 or visit www.gapadventures.com/v&t
- Helen Wong’s Tours, phone 1300 788 328 or visit www.helenwongstours.com
- InterAsia Tours, phone 1300 133 001 or visit www.interasia.com.au
- Intrepid Travel, phone 1300 364 512 or visit www.intrepid.com
- Selective Tours, phone 1300 760 208 or visit www.selectivetours.com
- Travel Indochina, phone 1300 138 755 or visit www.travelindochina.com.au
- Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection, visit www.uniworldcruises.com.au
- Viking River Cruises, phone 1800 829 138 or visit www.vikingrivercruises.com
- Wendy Wu Tours, phone 02 9224 8888 or 1300 727 998 or visit www.wendywutours.com.au
Where to eat
- 1931 Bar and Restaurant, Maoming Nan Lu 112 (Luwan District), phone +86 21 6472 5264.
- Art Salon, Nanchang Lu 164 (Luwan District), phone +86 21 5306 5462.
- Crystal Jade Restaurant (Feicuì Jiujia), 2nd floor, 12A & B, Nanli 6-7 (Luwan District), phone +86 21 6385 8752.
- Di Shui Dong, Maoming Nan Lu 56 (Luwan District), phone +86 21 6253 2689.
- Huxinting Teahouse (Huxinting Chashi), Yuyuan Lu 257 (Nanshi District), phone +86 21 6373 6950.
- Lan Na Thai, Ruijin Er Lu 118 (Luwan District), phone +86 21 6466 4328.
- M on the Bund, Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu 5 (Huangpu District) +86 21 6350 9988 or visit www.m-restaurantgroup.com
- Old China Hand Reading Room (Hanyuan Shuwu), Shaoxing Lu 27 (Xuhui District), phone +86 21 6473 2526.
- Old Film Café, Duolun Lu 123 (Hongkou District), phone +86 21 5696 4763.
- O’Malley’s, Taojiang Lu 42 (Xuhui District), phone +86 21 6437 0667.
- Shanghai Classic Restaurant (Shanghai Lao Fandian ), Fuyou Lu 242 (Nanshi District), phone +86 21 6355 2275.
- Shanghai Uncle (Haishang Ashu), Yan'an Dong Lu 200-222 (Huangpu District), phone +86 21 6339 1977.
- Three on the Bund, Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu 3 (Huangpu District), phone +86 21 6323 3355 or visit www.threeonthebund.com
- Villa du Lac (Hu Ting), 383 Huangpi Nan Lu (Luwan District), phone +86 21 6387 6387 or visit www.justinquek.com
Where to stay
- Le Royal Méridien Shanghai, phone +86 21 3318 9999 or visit www.lemeridien.com
- Pudi Boutique Hotel, contact Small Luxury Hotels of the World on 1800 251 958 or visit www.slh.com
- St Regis Shanghai, phone +86 21 5050 4567 or visit www.stregis.com
- Westin Bund Centre, phone +86 21 6335 1888 or visit www.westin.com
Further information
- Contact the China National Tourist Office on 02 9252 9838 or visit www.cnto.org.au
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