dining

Thanks to a recent surfeit of fine-dining restaurants, Shanghai is fast gaining gastronomic significance, one Michelin star at a time. The city’s dynamic, international outlook is entirely mirrored in its culinary scene, with everything from refined local Huaiyang eateries to rarefied Italian restaurants all receiving a galaxy of Michelin stars. Innovative, creative and outstanding, these seven restaurants are among Shanghai’s most celebrated and undoubtedly the best places to savour the city’s finest haute cuisine.

Ultraviolet

Maverick French chef Paul Pairet cleverly blends cutting edge technology and visuals with avant-garde cooking at his three-star restaurant, Ultraviolet. Dining here is a 20-course multisensory experience. Seating ten guests only at one table, the dining space is a white room – a blank canvas for projections, sounds, music and scents to dazzle the senses as you dine. Theatre aside, centre-stage are his wondrous gastronomic creations like sesame black cod sweetened with lavender honey.

8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana

Having spent 15 years in Asia, Italian chef Umberto Bombana’s status is legendary in China. The Shanghai outpost of his three-starred Hong Kong restaurant, 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana is fast gaining similar recognition courtesy of its two stars. Located in the smart Rockbund building with Huangpu River panoramas, the eatery is home to decadently luxurious Italian dishes like white truffle tagliolini and black truffle risotto. What’s more, Bombana sources the finest ingredients from all over the world.

Shang-High

Headed up by chef Frank Hu, Shang-High at Jumeirah Himalayas Hotel masterfully marries local flavours and cuisines with Western ingredients. The result is seriously innovative cooking and pretty-as-a-picture plates of food. Try Chef Hu’s braised beef cheek, a rich, melt-in-the-mouth dish, given an indulgent twist with truffles. All sleek leather booths and clean lines, Shang-High’s décor is a love letter to modern Shanghai with nods to China’s traditional heritage. Up on the 6th floor, you have a sublime view of the city’s ever-changing skyline below.

Moose

Occupying a grand, three-story colonial-era villa, Moose is the proud owner of one star for its traditional Huaiyang cuisine, local to the Jiangsu Province. Simple white brick walls are adorned with sumptuous European antiques and oil paintings, and like the restaurant’s name suggests, antlers. You won’t find moose on the menu however, instead, refined takes on classic Huaiyang dishes like braised pork belly with baby squid in brown sauce and bamboo shoots. Moose’s tasty signature dish is boneless duck filled with rice and eight Chinese delicacies.

WUJIE

Given the Chinese’s celebration of all things meat when it comes to cooking, it perhaps comes as some surprise that vegetarian restaurant, WUJIE holds a Michelin star. Not so. Elevating meat-free cuisine to something very special indeed, WUJIE is inspired by the five elements and puts vegetarian cooking on another level. Imaginative flavour combinations like lotus flower with chocolate and exceptionally sourced ingredients like organic strawberries from Chongming Island and wild truffles from Yunnan all harmonise to create exceptional cooking.

YongFoo Élite

In the 1930s YongFoo Elite was the British Embassy. Today, the two-starred restaurant gives nods its former incarnation with quintessentially English Chesterfield sofas, classic antiques and a romantic air of faded grandeur. Its stylish decor is courtesy of former fashion designer owner Wang Xing Zheng’s incredible eye for interiors. But it’s YongFoo Elite’s Shanghainese dishes that are the draw. Smoked codfish in Qi Men black tea, drunken chicken carefully marinated in wine and pork belly braised in white wine and soy.

L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon

The late, great Joël Robuchon has many L’Atelier’s dotted around the world but few can boast seating that surrounds a vast 1.8m teppanyaki grill. All crimson red with black accents, the Bund 18-located restaurant delivers theatre and drama alongside Robuchon’s signature French cuisine. Dine up at the counter with a front row seat for the chefs at work and dine on unapologetically opulent foie gras, oysters and caviar.

Discover Shanghai's most celebrated places to savour the city’s finest haute cuisine when you stay at Jumeirah Himalayas Hotel.