The second branch of Cotton's on tranquil Xinhua Lu has a fireplace for the winter and a huge patio for the summer, with lots of cushy seats. Drinks are generally around 60rmb, but they do buy-one-get-one during happy hour.
Multi-concept restaurant by French celeb chef Nicolas le Bec in a century-old villa on Xinhua Lu. Huge selection of French wines, and a menu of French classics with Asian accents. Think: handmade patés and charcuterie, bavette au poivre, roast fowl, and more. Expect to drop some coin here.
This place smells like ginger as soon as you walk in the door. A canopy of trees hangs over the second floor patio in this beautiful old house. Lots of small rooms over different levels inside, too. Food is a mix of Mediterranean, Malaysian, and European. Good service. Ginger has had at least six other concepts in Shanghai over the years, but only this one remains.
A lot of people know The Beer Lady, but just down the road at 291 Panyu Lu is another place selling tons of cheap imported beer by the bottle. It shares some ownership with Dada Bar. Good cheap pizza here, too. Solid place to get some work done in the afternoon.
Chill beer-drinking spot on quiet Tai'an Lu, not far from Heyday jazz bar. This place stocks some hard-to-find Chinese beers, like the Baby IPA from Nanjing and selections from Beijing's NB Brewery. Their second location on Fuxing Lu near Yongfu Lu has even more Chinese draft beer and a super nice rooftop in the trees.
Smiley Mrs. Zhang has a convenience store off of Fahuazhen Lu, in a no-name alley where the most notable neighbors are a police station you may have registered at. You may have paid 2rmb per page for passport photocopies at Mrs. Zhang's shop during said registration. She has a big selection of craft beers, including many hard to find ones, and some painfully expensive ones. At night, and daytime by request, she puts tables outside and this place turns into a laid-back street bar. Read the whole story.
Hengshan Lu, known for talking bars, neon lights, boom boom clubs, and a decent bowling alley. This used to be the strip, but times have changed. Avenue is trying to bring back the magic with some proper cocktails. Their bar manager has a background at el Coctel and Kommune. Still, not amazing, but you could do much, much worse on Hengshan Lu.
Taojiang Lu sequel to one of Shanghai's most popular summer venues. Take a guess at where the name comes from. With patio seating, cheap beer on tap, and lots of (often unfortunate) classic rock, this bar / restaurant is the ultimate expat venue. Abbey Road's menu includes mostly Swiss fare interspersed with some American. Good happy hour deals.
The sequel to chef Brad Turley's popular restaurant Goga sits on the seventh floor of The Shanghai Education Hotel. The place is 90 percent open-air terrace with sweeping skyline views. The food is great, but expect to drop at least 500–600rmb per person on the casual, California-style cuisine like fresh oysters, crab cakes, and Turley's signature sliders. This place also has a really good selection of bourbon, and a decent happy hour from 5–7pm on weekdays.
Willy's restaurant on Donghu Lu is huge. So is the menu. There's close to 100 items, covering Mediterranean with a focus on Spanish and Italian cuisine. Highlights include a wide range of imported cheeses and charcuterie, shareable steak and seafood dishes, and a tapas list representing most of the region's culinary touchstones. Another addition is a deli shop selling specialty Spanish food items, cured meats and artisan cheeses. Anyway, nice patio, which hosts the yearly Feria de Abril party.
Hey, feel like a 120rmb salad? What about some 40rmb smoothies? Price gouging aside, those smoothies are good in the summertime, and so is this patio on Donghu Lu.
Just eating foods in the mall...This South East Asian and Thai inspired cafe in the IAPM slings Thai staples such as Pad Thai, Tom Yum and fusion style sandwiches and drinks. Seems like some er nai frequent this place.
Just north of the IAPM, French wine and wide views on Kartel's roof. Place is solid, especially during happy hour from 6–8pm, when Ricard pastis is 25rmb, draft beers are 25rmb, Red and white wine are 25rmb per glass, and Aperol spritz is 30rmb.
Remember when finding Belgian beer felt special? Kaiba was one of the first spots to focus on the heavyweight monk brews, back in 2008. Perhaps their Tianzifang location is less known than their other branches, but it's good. Loads of strong beer by the bottle and on the taps, plus decent bar food. They have a crazy daytime free-flow deal too.
CHEESE. Lots of it, at this French-Swiss après-ski “cabin” on Taojiang Lu. Croque Monsieurs, soup, and knock-you-down Delirium beer on draft. For more on this place, check out our First Bite.
Laid-back garden bar on Yongjia Lu. It's part of Shari, a high-end Japanese restaurant and sushi bar. Aside from the serene atmosphere, the highlight here is an expert list of craft cocktails developed by Munenori Harada of Avenue Joffre down the street. Expect classic drinks with a Japanese twist, like the Ume Caprioska, the Black Manhattan, and the Pimm's Highball. Good happy hour deals, a wine shop, and Sunday parties during the summer as well.
The strip of restaurants in front of the Xintiandi Style mall stays packed during the warm months. Most spots are mediocre, but Vietnamese-chain Aniseed serves up some decent drip coffee, vermicelli, and banh mi sandwiches at mid-range prices. Good people watching.
Patio spots abound on Dagu Lu. This Spanish restaurant has some decent deals on tapas, Spanish beer, and lunch buffets.
Hip, high-end flower shop The Beast has branched out into cafés, including this well-designed spot in Xintiandi. Expect to pay double the price of Starbucks, but they do throw three espresso shots in their Americanos. And if you ever needed to take a PR / Marketing princess on a date, this would be the place...
Arch Walk's rooftop game is just so far ahead of other malls. The basement food courts are next-level too. This spot beside the Loshanguan Lu metro station exudes fine retail design, with waterfalls and multi-level patios on the roof, and more water, unexpected / random restaurants, video projection screens, and fountains in the basement. About as cool as a trip to the mall can be.
Just around the corner from Arch Walk and L'Avenue stands another new Hongqiao mall. This one is closer in design to...most other strip malls in town, but they did manage to bring downtown favorites like Boxing Cat, Sproutworks, and Pizza Express to the Westside, along with a few new contenders like The Boiler.
Eating steak in the mall...The Cut, another project by the team behind Bar Rouge and Mr & Mrs Bund does steak and frites, a solid Thursday night party, and the patio is so nice you'll forget you're in a center of consumerism.
Really decent Portuguese restaurant in Jing'an that opened in 2015. Mostly Iberian food plus a mish-mash of dishes from across Europe and North America. Good beers on tap and in bottles. Equally good for groups or casual dates. Non-smoking until 10pm, when they turn down the lights and turn up the tunes. More about the place in our review.
Buddie's would never build a patio. Family Mart did. And it's a fine one. Right down the street from the expat ghetto, San He Hua Yuan, you'll find one of the cheapest -- and surprisingly plush -- patios in town. Happy hour all day every day, with Kirin tall boys going for bout 10rmb and Soju for 20rmb. The Family Mart on Donghu Lu also has a decent patio.
Long a standby for the expat set, this bar and grill does slings suburban American faves like pastas, salads, sandwiches, burgers, seafood and steaks. Guess this was pretty big with the foreign tai tai crowd circa 2009. You could do better, but you could also do worse.
Right by the Hilton and all those talking-girl bars, you will find a Lawson's with a patio. No, it is not as nice as the Family Mart patio. Yes, it is near a highway. But you just left the club, it's 6am, and this is the place to sit outside, pound Asahi, and review your life choices.
This restaurant by the Jing'an Shangri-la does Mediterranean cuisine with a sharp focus on Italy and Spain. Pizza is good. Other choices include handmade pasta dishes, risottos, and primo cuts of Wagyu beef from Australia. The building itself is of note, too. It's bright design suffused with natural light comes courtesy of famed Japanese architect Shigeru Ban.
Fusion restaurant by the owner of The Shelter. They serve a mean steak sandwich, well-priced Japanese draft beer, and good, chilled-out music by local DJs like T-Plus. Underrated by foreigners, this spot stays packed with locals on the weekends.
Casual fine dining in Shanghai at The Puli hotel. This place is the master of urbane, rugged luxury, and tends to attract a jet-set crowd. Food is excellent but expect to drop some coin. Great for brunch and after-brunch drinks. You can check the brunch review in the May 2016 edition of The Brunch List
Since opening in 2014, walk-up bar Dogtown has become a go-to spot for after-work drinks and weekend daytime drunks in Jing'an. Now the place is famous for offering a free keg of Asahi beer virtually every Saturday and Sunday at noon. They used to do Mexican food, but then their chef left to open Wishbone so currently the menu includes burgers and other bar fare.
Straightforward eats like steaks and chops and charcuterie plates in this "Restaurant & Martini Kitchen" concept by Charles Cabell (formerly Mesa & Manifesto, presently Bocado) and partner Michael Zhao (formerly Mesa & Manifesto). Chef Zhao also incorporates some Chinese influences with a selection of wok-fried dishes. The other key component here is cocktails. They pour a range of classics with new twists and creative originals. Good happy hour and other deals, too.
Chill vinyl-themed café / small-club / radio station in North Jing'an by old-school Shanghai DJ Dave K. Solid soundsystem, decent drinks, and a nice patio for the summer. Tends to function as an after-hours spot as well, raging well into the sunlight, especially on Sundays. On May 20, 2016, they'll open Reel To Reel in Fuxing SOHO and URVC will become more of a chill jazz bar.
Taixing Lu, just around the corner from the Nanjing Xi Lu strip that used to be the Wujiang Lu street food market. Now this little alley houses several decent bars, like this, Logan's Punch Bowl, el Ocho, and Starling. Tap house has a lot of decent brews on draft and plenty of seats outside. Just around the corner, you've got this nightly party where aunties and uncles bring their dogs to mate.
So underrated. So empty. This rooftop branch of the JZ family tree next to Yu Garden has some of the best views in the city. On a recent visit, no one even bothered to ask if we'd like a drink. In fact, not a single waitress or waiter even came up there. Feels like you could get away with anything on this roof, while the gods looked down, mouth agape.
Hunan food in a nice spot on The Bund. Dishes are homestyle and creative in the 40-50rmb range, with lots of noodles, and the interior is contemporary and minimal, without being pretentious. Inexpensive, good food in a slightly more refined environment than your average Hunanese hole-in-the-wall.
The tucked-away location makes this little gem easy to forget about, but the rooftop bar at Banyan Tree On The Bund offers prime views of the Huangpu.
This used to be The Fat Olive. Now it's the little sister of Maya. The place is almost all patio, and perfect for brunch or summer drinks.
American-inspired brasserie at Three On The Bund with one of the nicest views in the city. Kind of a Miami-via-France vibe here. The menu is mostly comfort cuisine like braised short ribs, duck leg confit, steaks, and classics like oysters Rockefeller. There's a full bar here with some quirky neon work too, and they have DJs on some evenings and on the weekends. There's also a cigar bar and a big liquor selection. Expect to drop some red money here if you're eating.
Laid-back cocktail bar with great Bund views and a menu that blends Chinese elements into the mix. Place is mostly cocktails, wine, and champagne, with a few Chinese / Sichuan tapas plates -- dishes like smoked fish wrapped in cotton candy, spicy beef, and ma la fish and chips. About 110 seats total, most of which are out on the deck. Good spot to show people The Bund if you don't wanna get all fancy, and the drinks aren't crazy expensive. More about the place in our article.
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