Coffee 15rmb,
Mochachocontop 22rmb,
Hot Chocolate 28rmb,
Pizza 68-78rmb
SmartShanghai.com Editorial Review
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Any expenses are paid for by SmartShanghai.
Don't walk by this little spot on Huaihai Lu, near the Changshu subway station. Tucked off in a little alley amidst the glitzy furniture stores, Whisk offers midday cuisine such as warmed paninis, as well as entrees and a wine menu. Desserts are sinful chocolate concoctions. Non-smoking area.
I'm just taking the time to post an add which I usually don't do cuz my idleness forbids me to do it, which makes it much more genuine I guess!
I’ve been here living a couple of years now, I’m quite aware of the restaurant’s market here and Whisk is without a doubt on in my top’ list. So for sure, the service is changing but come on let’s face it, we’re in Shanghai, staff turnover are amazing: faithfulness is a myth, better live with it.
Whisk’s Food is amazing that’s one thing (Calabrese on my mind), but the point doesn’t just reside in the food itself or the fact that it’s a cosy place or that Whisk’s bosses (Alex and Ling) are full of kindness, it actually resides in all this stuff together which make it one of the best cocktail in town.
So yes, I admit, I’m smoking “Whisks”, I do, I started about one year ago and “Oh Boy”, I’m far from quitting!
Cheers!
unfortunately, I also need to join forces with ButterflyT and Shahla...
My last two visits to Whisk were very disappointing, for reasons mentioned. I used to go regularly, but discover that does not have any measure or effect on service. Being told that food will come later because a larger group ordered a lot of food - after we submitted our order - is borderline absurd. We too were asked to move table mid-dinner, and told it was 'because we had no reservation'. We were moved to the door accessing the toilet, and as such smell the toilet fresheners over the scent of our food. The booths up front were free, but they were not offered to us, and we were told these were kept for 'other guests'. Asking for the manager, we got the classic 'he is not here' excuse, only to see him walk right by us 5 minutes later. We stopped bothering, we stopped caring.
Very disappointed... it used to be a refuge, the place to find excellent food and a comfy environment. Before they had staff that was endearing and charming, now they don't even look you in the eye. Where we once all felt welcome and appreciated, we now have that same business-first coldness we find in so many other places that want to offer western vibes...
so long Whisk, it was good while it lasted...
I agree with ButterflyT!!! I had the same problem a few months ago but decided not to complain cos I really like Whisk alot...and still do! I made a reservation for 7 people but only 4 people could make it..I had no control over it. During our meal they had a group of 10 people come in (no reservation) and while we were still eating we were asked to move to another table..um...ya ok!! I didn't want to make a fuss so we moved! On top of that the group of 10 got free desserts (should have come to the people who were inconvenienced no?). I work in F&B and in no way would I be doing that to customers. No shame..you gotta hand it to them though..they're there to make a profit and they're not afraid to say it!!
When Whisk first opened up it was a welcome change to have a restaurant with a nice venue, great food and their infamous chocolate desserts at affordable prices. Their service was good and they were destined to become a very popular eatery for all living and visiting Shanghai.
However, I must agree with many of the previous comments. While the food and desserts remain the best in Shanghai their service has taken a turn for the worst.
Last weekend I had a friend visiting from abroad and she was appalled at the request of the staff. Once we had been seated we were told that we had one hour to eat and drink and then we had to leave due to pending reservations. After an hour and hurriedly shoveling our faces with food waiting to be told to leave, nothing happened. There was no arrival of a previously reserved customer and the table next to us became and remained unoccupied too.
Noticing how busy the restaurant was last weekend I decided to make a reservation to ensure seating for an unlimited period of time. Upon attempting to make a reservation I was informed that because my party of two did not plan to have a main meal and only dessert and drinks my reservation was declined. “Please try again at 9pm” was the response.
The person on the phone was very apologetic about the situation but to me this is totally unacceptable. I understand that to make a profit and increase revenues it would benefit Whisk to have people dining on a 3 course meal. But a customer is a customer and to ensure good service you need to make provisions for all customers.
That they have not expanded the size of the restaurant to accommodate customers who either want to have a 3 course meal or only come for dessert and drinks baffles me!? All restaurants are open to make a profit but also to ensure customer satisfaction.
Over the past few months more and more of my friends and colleagues have complained about Whisks deteriorating and increasingly slack service. It is such a pity as it really is a delightful place with great food. Hopefully management will address the continual complaints about the service and pay attention to situations were customers are being asked to leave in the middle of a meal and turned away because their expenditure at the restaurant does not meet the term 'valued customer'!!!!
Great food, especially desserts, in a laid-back, convenient location. One of my favorite places in town. My only complaint is that they no longer seem to have wireless. Wireless is a must for me, as I work from home and go out to lunch every day. Unfortunately, I can't go to lunch at Whisk anymore, but I still go for weekend brunches.
has been a friendly place but things seem to change a little lately. the service has dropped a little but the price has increase a little. any reason for this ?
Desserts was amazing and the level of the sweetness is just right. Reminds me of DEATH BY CHOCOLATE in NZ. Service was good, standard for a restaurant serving international gourmet, so far no problem. Wish Whisk could expand the business, bigger place and maintain & improve service.
Good place. Last time I was there, I have to wait longer for my sandwitch because according to the staff it was disqualified after inspection of the manager.
Not sure what this means but the rest was alright and the chocolate is real.
Staff is philipino I guess.
I have a love/hate relationship with Whisk. First of, their chocolate sahara is heaven. Every time I pass by or have a meal there, I must get a pack - maybe two, sometimes 3. Ok, I'm addicted to chocolate, but who isn't?
Food: Aside from their dessert, their pasta is also very good. Calms in their seafood pasta/risotto are slight undercooked, but decent in general.
Service: Ummm let's just say there's room for improvement. Aside from one male waiter, the rest of the staff are slow and have not clue what's going on. They look lost all the time - like it's their first day at Whisk - amazing. I would have to agree with previous reviews on both service level and the attitude of the manager/owner - would it kill them to put on a smile? After all, you're in the service business. They look mad, stern-faced all the time - again, this is beyond me.
I'll still return for the food, but maybe just take out to avoid clueless wait staff and gloomy manager/owner.
We do understand restaurants have business objective to follow. But if there were certain concerns on people lingering the place too
long, maybe the restaurant could allocate special area or send a kindly reminder before the customers sit down and order
something, especially when customers made it clear that they were only for some drink. At least, the restaurant should have the decency and gut to give a legitimate explanation before "EXPELLING" clients out.
To "Little Feather" saying "Having read some of the negative reviews, I can only assume they are jealous restaurateurs posing as patrons", i can only say that so could the opposite to be true -- People posing to be fans. The devil lies in details. No matter how wonderful the food might be, if the service disqualifies itself, it's nothing.
At the end of the day, poor management will always bring a establishment down. I did not respond to the owner's reply to my last post because it a) was completely untrue and b)failed to apologize for what I felt was ill behaviour on the part of both himself and his staff. I don't feel it my part to descend into a my-word-against-his slanging match because really this forum should be used for more constructive purposes.
But I do feel it timely to comment on one point, that is the basic lack of decency so many customers in Shanghai are having to face served at establishments like Whisk. All it takes, and I would imagine these are absolute givens before one even thinks of opening a public-facing enterprise, is the decency to be polite to ANY customer, to apologize when obviously necessary, and the humility to accept criticism without resorting to fabricated excuses.
Levels of service in Shanghai being as low as they are generally, I do feel that Whisk would stand a better chance of keeping it's clientele if they invested a bit more into this side of things - all the way from the manager/owner down to their specially-recruited staff.
Seems theres no middle ground. While Whisk is fun, clean, and home to great service, I have to agree with the patrons who disliked the food.
The pizza's which seem to be the most recommended are by far the worst menu item. I swear they are frozen dinner style supermarket pizzas warmed up in the oven. Not much flavor and the toppings are straight from a plastic frozen bag, not fresh.
Thats my only critique, because I love Pizza. And, this undoubtedly reminded me of cafeteria style cardboard box junk. So dissapointing.
Next time, just for dessert.
Having read some of the negative reviews, I can only assume they are jealous restaurateurs posing as patrons.
I have lived in Shanghai for over four years and would argue that Whisk is the best laid back dinning experience in the city. To say I am a regular at Whisk is quite the understatement. In my numerous visit I have never had a bad meal. The staff is attentive but not irritating. The seating is comfortable, though I will admit I prefer the booths to the tables.
Dark Granitas and Chocolate Pudding are well worth the visit, but it offers much more. I have 3 more days left in Shanghai, all of which will be spent at Whisk . . .
You'll always get the haters writing crap here and there...at the end of the day it's a welcoming place and I agree about the hired help (higher quality), and the food is amazing. We love it so much we made a group on facebook under 'Whisk Lovers Unite'!!!!
Have been there on tuesday evening, around 7 and had my best Pizza in Shanghai. Ok, I haven't tried that many places, yet, but it's definitely quite good. The cappucino was also good.
As for the toilet being terribly dirty: not true. And this is not even comparing with chinese restaurants' toilet standards ;)
And the menu didn't have stickers in it, they probably changed that - although I couldn't care less :P
The service was very good and polite, but of course there were only 4 or 5 people in the restaurant at that time, so perhaps this is different on weekend - don't know.
All in all: Great place! I'll be back with some chinese friends and show them how pizza has to taste (they only know Pizza Hut crap and think that's real Pizza - you Americans REALLY screwed that one up!).
Great Soups at lunch... served in a mug... They could improve this by serving in a bowl!
The salads are mumma hu hu... they always seem to be soggy?? with no flavour. and the Paninis are over priced full of cheese and short on other fillings, they need to take a page out of Il Paninos book and perhaps waggas too! The staff are very friendly...
Hi everyone, this is Alex, chef and co owner of Whisk. A recent comment made by Shanghaisoup deserves an answer.The reason behind Whisk cutting off the internet or “Whisk whacks internet” by Shanghaiist would not have been done without deep consideration as we have contemplated the repercussions. SHsoup has written her story but, I just wanted to write down the facts.
Actually, the visit by SHsoup was not a few weeks ago as we have not had internet for over 4 months, she is the deciding factor for us eliminating our internet after she left. SHsoup chose the seat next to the” most disgusting, filthy STINKING square meter in Shanghai “ as we had plenty of other seats available. She seemed so comfortable, that she leaned against the wall and planted her bare feet onto the sofa in the “narrowly wedged corridor” area where, next to her, another customer was eating a salad.
The only accurate part is, I did see the whole episode. I got our waiter to ask her to put her feet down or move to a more private working table, originally designed for the use of the internet with power supply. We didn’t give the bill or get the chance, as she got furious stormed over, bad mouthed our shop and left without paying.
We invest, at extra cost for Pilipino staff to make our customers more comfortable. We are a small independent store and I read all comments on the internet to monitor improvement in any way.
I thank you, for all positive criticisms.
Alex
A few weeks ago, I went to Whisk and had the most disappointing experience I've yet to have in Shanghai (having lived here a few years, that's saying something!). Aside from all the little things like the fact that the tables are so narrowly wedged into a corridor that you feel claustrophobically uncomfortable (and decidedly unromantic); that the toilet wins, hands down, the prize for the most disgusting, filthy STINKING square meter in Shanghai (why are staff using it? and why does no one clean it?!), what really surprises is the downright rudeness of the manager and staff on occasion. I brought in my laptop to do a bit of work over a coffee and was shown to a seat near the stinky loo. Fifteen minutes later, as I was in the middle of a call from my boss, I got given the bill (without asking for it) and asked to move to the interior area which was apparently the laptop area. I motioned to the waiter to give me a second to finish up the call but he stood there angrily pointing at my laptop and after I apologetically ended the call with my boss, he asked me to leave!! Stunned, I asked to speak to the manager, who it turned out was standing nearby watching the whole episode - quite astoundingly, he said his staff were right in asking me to leave since I had been using my loptop in the non-laptop area! This despite my clearly saying when I walked in that I wanted to use their free wifi and being shown to that seat by them! Badly trained staff, I can cope with, since the opposite is a rarity in SH. But when the management are equally user-unfriendly, I don't see a hope of survival. I certainly don't plan to ever go back there.
This the best place i have went to in a long time. The food is divine mand the staff amazing!!! The chocolate i must say would be better than the best orgasm you evere had in your life!!!!! Believe me people good orgasms are rare but good chocolate exists at Whisk
Know the joke about pizza? It's like sex, even when it's bad it's still pretty good. Well sorry to say but I couldn't even finish my pizza at Whisk so that says a lot........
Im a patron of Whisk and having read some poor reviews recently i went there to check it out for myself only to be greeted by its hands-on owner Alex. We had our fav Tuscan Heat Pizza (Rmb70) which was sumptuous for two accompanied by some delicious White Granita drink (Rmb28) which is my favorite. As per Alex recommendation we tried is brand new concoction, the Alex's Ricotta Cheescake which just melted in our mouth. On the whole a great evening.
till now,have only tried desserts and panini.
the upside down cake,hot brownie and tiramisu,I recommand all these.Chocolate cakes can always give me great satisfactory.Also see a lot people order macaroni,which looks flavorful.Will try it next time.
Well, they do need to sort out the confusing menu situation. And they are a little light on the pour (and I don't think it's just an illusion because of their fashionably large wine glasses).
However, the food is really good. I've especially enjoyed the "Tuscan heat" pizza (and yes, it's big enough for two) and the incredibly delectable asparagus and bacon risotto. If you're dismayed by the high price of a glass of wine (and the light pour), order a glass of Prosecco--it pairs wonderfully with a risotto.
I went there last week end with my girlfriend and I had to say it was so-so. The pasta were not good enough for the price. I had a glass of an Italian white wine, no fresh enough, how do you want to enjoy a warm white??? But hopefully the deserts were very tasty, you could enjoy the real chocolate's taste. at finals the bill was 350RMB for 2 pastas, 2 deserts, 3 drinks and one coffee. not bad but next time i'll only come back for the desert.
Hot choclit is not the real thick drink as promised It’s more like a not quite yet cooled down choc pudding…Service is confused, but chocolit brownies are heavenly! A bit pricy…a sandwich lunch costs more than 50Y.
I went along to try Whisk out after reading all the rave reviews! Overall disappointed with the experience.
1.Three menus offered, so many stickers over the printed menu referring to try out this or that very tacky, and confusing.
2.Ordered the soup of the day, very tasty tomato soup served in a beaker, (very hot micro waved) with huge chunk of bread. Also had the vegetarian risotto, which came before I had finished the soup??
3.The risotto was piping hot, almost as if it was just zapped by the microwave and lacked taste, needed to ask for salt and pepper which was not offered.
4.Also ordered a glass of wine, LARGE glass, very little wine?
5.The service was inattentive, especially with so few customers for a Tuesday evening at 7:00pm, with servers propping up the walls.
6.An observation and one of irritation was that the employees were constantly using the customer’s restroom; the cleanliness of the restroom also left a lot to be desired.
Rating 4/10
every now and then - but never too often - you feel you "discover" this secret place. We casually explored Whisk during a lunch break, wah, still talking about it! I lived in SH for over 7 years = hands-down the best pizza ever. The Tuscan Heat is a MUST. True = big enough to share with 2. At 68rmb that is a good deal. Dessert cakes are huge! And damn good espresso - at 10 bucks a shot! Woohoo!!!
If anything it would be little things like seating arrangements; sitting on the bench means you sit much lower then the person opposite you. But ah what the heck, after the 1st bite in that pizza we were both sold on the place! Highly recommended!
Had tuna melt panini & salad, espresso w choc-bisquit, sodawater at rmb 70. Food tasted all fresh & crisp. Looks like chef likes what he is preparing. Espresso was smooth, nutty, all but bitter. Left with huge satisfaction and will come back to taste more.
Went there last week and ordered a Pizza for myself. I was surprised why the waitress asked me if I want to share the Pizza. Once it arrived I knew why, it's huge and definitely made for two to share. Taste was excellent. I think Shanghai needs more small and friendly cafes/restaurants like Whisk.
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