Sympathy Angel (交感天使) is the most memorable bar I've seen in a long time. It's less a bar and more like another dimension hidden behind a door - a dark-but-cute, adorable-and-slightly-grotesque dimension full of taxidermy animals wearing lace, high-backed chairs, zebra-patterned couches, stained glass and plastic beads glowing under green and red lights, and relics from Showa-era Japan. It's kind of Lynchian, there's a dolphin fountain in the middle of the room, and like many cool new places in Shanghai, it's on the west side in the Underground INS:C-Park.
This place relocated here from Taiyuan Lu and just opened last weekend. The founders are Shigemi from Shanghai-via-Chengdu and 69 from Beijing, who also runs the vintage shop Terminal 69 next door. Her name comes from a character in the 1995 Japanese cult film Insatsu no Toriko, a Terminator parody. Originally internet friends, the duo met IRL in Japan in 2017 and started collaborating.
On a recent afternoon, sunny outside but dark down here, I caught up with Shigemi over a cup of house black coffee while a bartender delicately prepared Sympathy Angel's house special "Showa-era Pudding Ship". Wearing a sky blue suit from the 1980s and looking like she teleported in from a film, Shigemi explained the place's design as a version of "The West" as seen through an Asian lens and we talked about her favorite taxidermy animal in the glass case (a two-headed rabbit), her time curating parties at underground venues like ALL and Abyss, and the bar's paintings by Keiichi Ohta (太田螢一). Around us, late Gen Z kids in full-on Lolita outfits took photos of each other with vintage CCD cameras.
Inspired by snack bars, Japanese cafes, and erotic museums, Sympathy Angel becomes a cocktail bar at night, serving modern takes on classic Japanese cocktails, like "11:11 Holographic Rose," "Chinese Meat," and "Demon Realm Bisque" (98-118rmb) to the soundtrack of Showa-era J-pop and occasional DJ sets (this Friday features Beijing rap pioneer bloodzboi). A sign outside the door hints at karaoke.
This one is a must-visit for fans of Japanese culture, the erotic, the grotesque, and vintage, and anyone who likes opening random doors and stepping into new dimensions.
