“We want our Fujian cuisine to gain a foothold in Shanghai, and radiate to the whole country and abroad,” he says.
Other chefs have similar ambitions as Wu.
13 best new restaurants and bars in Hong Kong to try in December 2023
13 best new restaurants and bars in Hong Kong to try in December 2023
In mid 2021, 102 House moved from Foshan, Guangdong province, to Shanghai.
“We moved to Shanghai because we’d like more international guests to understand the charm of Cantonese banquet dishes and feel the elegance of traditional Cantonese cuisine,” says 102 House’s manager, Yao Min.
Ling Long Beijing is another restaurant with a Shanghai presence, with an offshoot opening at the Waldorf Astoria Shanghai hotel back in March.
“Shanghai has a mature and comprehensive gastronomic culture that attracts diners from all over the world,” says Ling Long Beijing’s chef-owner, Jason Liu. “I’d like to partake in it too.”
Not long after Ling Long Beijing’s opening – on May 31, 2023 – EHB, the first international outpost of the three-Michelin-star Maaemo restaurant in Oslo, Norway, opened quietly in Shanghai.
It was joined months later by a branch of Narisawa, chef Yoshihiro Narisawa’s eponymous restaurant in Tokyo, at the brand-new 1000Trees Complex overlooking Suzhou Creek.
Michelin Guide Hong Kong and Macau 2023: third star for Ta Vie, and a shock
Michelin Guide Hong Kong and Macau 2023: third star for Ta Vie, and a shock
We run our rule over these new entrants to the Shanghai restaurant scene.
1. Meet the Bund Skyline
Opened August 2023
The third, and the finest, offshoot of one-Michelin-star Meet the Bund at The Bund Finance Centre is on the 56th floor of the Raffles City West Tower, Skyline.
The restaurant offers uninterrupted views of the Bund in a space with a dark wood interior that fuses Chinese elegance with contemporary minimalism.
The restaurant’s executive chef, Chen Zhiping, won the Michelin Guide Shanghai’s Young Chef Award in 2021.
While the restaurant offers a tasting menu, à la carte is recommended for those wanting to enjoy Meet the Bund Skyline’s signature dishes.
Chen cooks the ingredients in a lotus leaf for one day to get a silky, slightly viscous broth whose complexity is enhanced by the addition of Huadiao wine.
For Lipu taro – a dish from Guangxi, southwest China traditionally featuring taro and streaky pork – Chen uses a Fujian braising technique to stew the taro with the pork before serving just the taro in fried shallot oil. Infused with pork flavour, it is melt-in-the-mouth soft.
56/F, Raffles West Tower, North Bund, Hongkou district, Shanghai
2. Narisawa Shanghai
Opened July 2023
The first international outpost of chef Yoshihiro Narisawa’s two-Michelin-star namesake restaurant in Tokyo opened in summer 2023 at 1000Trees.
Catering to just 26 guests at a time, who can dine inside or on the restaurant’s outdoor terrace, Narisawa Shanghai serves cuisine inspired by the concept of satoyama, which Narisawa interprets as the harmony between humans and nature.
Guests familiar with the original Japanese restaurant can enjoy familiar dishes here like Bread of the Forest – bread proofed with wild yeast from Japan’s Shirakami Sanchi mountain range and baked tableside.
China has banned imports of Japanese seafood, but diners here will hardly notice its absence.
Chilled noodles are tossed in a sauce prepared with egg yolk and tomato-based soy sauce, then served with stumps of plump Russian Botan shrimp and finished with in-house cured roe from Shandong salmon.
Also on the menu is abalone from Fujian, which is steamed for eight hours in dashi and sake, then served atop a bed of nori-flecked risotto.
“I have visited many cities around the world, and Shanghai is one of my favourite cities,” Narisawa says.
“Shanghai has a long history, and it’s also the most surprisingly advanced futuristic city in the world … It has a collection of great restaurants and also ingredients from all over China. It’s a dream place for me.”
L7-05, 1000Trees, 600 Moganshan Road, Putuo district, Shanghai
3. EHB
Opened May 2023
EHB, an offshoot of Oslo’s three-Michelin-star Maaemo by chef Esben Holmboe Bang, is the first Nordic fine-dining restaurant in Shanghai.
In Villa Rosenfeld, a three-storey mansion built in 1921 that once served as the residence of former Republic of China premier Soong Tzu-wen, 44-seat EHB (the name comes from Bang’s initials) uses Nordic and Chinese ingredients. It has a tea room on the ground floor that becomes a cocktail bar at night.
The restaurant is headed by Brazilian chef Viviane Mello, a seven-year Maaemo veteran who won the Young Chef Award in the 2024 edition of the Michelin Guide Shanghai.
Guests at EHB are taken on a journey to different levels of the century-old mansion as the meal progresses.
Snacks are served in the third-floor living room, then diners are taken to the second-floor dining room for the main part of the meal, before they return to the living room for dessert.
Highlights include Dalian scallop cooked in honey butter and lemon cream, served in a light savoury shrimp and mushroom consommé.
For dessert, Singapore-born pastry chef Maira Yeo (named Asia’s Best Pastry Chef in 2022) creates Nordic-style sweets, including a brown butter conelet with almond crumbles and brown butter ice-cream.
11 Dongping Road, Xuhui district, Shanghai
4. Ling Long Shanghai
Opened March 2023
Taiwan native Jason Liu opened Ling Long Beijing in 2019 and was shortly thereafter awarded a star for Ling Long and the Young Chef Award for himself in the Beijing Michelin Guide 2019.
Why Chinese people eat snake soup in winter, and why it’s disappearing
Why Chinese people eat snake soup in winter, and why it’s disappearing
Liu opened a Ling Long offshoot in the Waldorf Astoria Shanghai hotel this year and it was awarded a star by the Michelin Guide Shanghai 2024 within months.
Reflecting the Beijing restaurant’s tenets of xian (umami), terroir, tradition and memories, Liu’s nine-course tasting menu features top-quality ingredients from across China.
Tangshan chicken from Hebei province is slaughtered at three years old, cured into a ham, then mixed with fresh chicken and simmered for 12 hours in water with salt. The resulting chicken soup is light and savoury, and is served with a large, sweet clam from Zhanggang, Fujian.
Fish maw is popular in Chinese cuisine but Liu prepares it in a unique way, cooking it in Tangshan chicken stock until it is soft but not too gelatinous.
He then serves the fish maw with gnocchi made from glutinous rice in a gruel-like broth with Beijing-made Parmesan-style cheese, and finishes the dish with 20-year-old Fujian orange peel and a cap of Parmesan crisp.
105 Waldorf Astoria Shanghai on the Bund, 2 Zhong Shan Dong Yi Road, Huangpu district, Shanghai
5. 102 House Shanghai
Opened June 2021
The original 102 House opened in 2006 as a private kitchen in Foshan, in Guangdong province, led by Yao Min and chef Xu Jingye.
The pair’s project to revive ancient Cantonese culinary traditions did well, and they expanded into an old residence in Foshan three years later.
In June 2021, during the Covid-19-pandemic, the pair uprooted and moved everything to Shanghai.
The restaurant won two stars in the Michelin Guide Shanghai 2023.
102 House Shanghai serves a seasonal 14-course tasting menu headlined by its signature sweet and sour pork dish.
Using a cut of pork between the pig’s belly and loin with a fat-to-lean ratio of 9:1, Xu fries the pork until it is crispy on the outside but soft inside, and serves it in a sauce made from a seasonal fruit and vinegar from the same fruit (peach in autumn, strawberry in winter, pineapple in spring and lychee in summer).
506 The House of Roosevelt, Bund 27, 27 Zhong Shan Dong Yi Road, Shanghai
