High and mighty: Shanghai Shangri-La ticks all the right boxes
Shanghai's second Shangri-La has arrived, writes Nick Taylor
Shanghai's first Shangri-La opened way back in 1998, a lifetime ago when held against the pace of the city's development. It was the first five-star hotel in the Pudong New Area. Back then, Pudong was little more than fields. Now it's the city's financial district and contains not only some of the mainland's most expensive commercial real estate, but also three of Asia's tallest skyscrapers.
The location of Shangri-La's second Shanghai property, which opened on June 29, is even more central. It sits smack in the centre of Jing'an, one of the city's busiest downtown shopping and restaurant districts. The new hotel is surrounded by new, high-end shopping destinations.
The Jing'an Shangri-La will have 508 rooms and suites when it's fully up and running (about 200 are open). All use a bright colour palate to try to make the most of their space. The entry-level Deluxe rooms feel a little pokey, but like the larger Premier rooms, they are peaceful and neat.
Grand Premier rooms are superior with espresso machines, Bulgari toiletries, and Bose audio equipment, plus a living area with a flat screen, which can be partitioned off from the bedroom. Their guests can also access the Horizon Club Lounge, which takes up the entire 55th floor, offering not only the standard free cocktails, coffee and hors d'oeuvres, but private rooms for meetings or social gatherings, plus a staggering 360-degree view of downtown Shanghai.
Guest accommodation takes up the 30th to the 59th storey of the building, and Shangri-La has put all of its room categories on every floor. So if you want a view, you can probably get one, even if you're booking into the entry-level rooms. When you book, ask them to put you on the highest floor they have available. Shanghai's a flat city, and from the top of this building its urban sprawl looks particularly attractive, with the tops of distant buildings peeping out of diaphanous smog like fingers reaching for the sky.
The hotel has three main restaurants: Summer Palace, which is Chinese fine-dining; Café Liang, a bright, colourful all-day buffet; and the 1515 West Steakhouse, which is the showpiece. The menu here simply lists different breeds of cattle - full-blood wagyu from Mayura in Japan, Robbins Island wagyu and Cape Grim Pure Angus, both from Tasmania, and Stockyard Angus from the US. The house butcher wheels various cuts up to the table so diners can inspect fat marbling or the dry-aged finish before their choice is whisked off and seared to perfection.
That does not seem to have dented the restaurant's popularity. It is already bustling with people, even early in the week.
1515 West also has an unusually beautiful cocktail bar. They've brought in Dario Gentile, who previously mixed drinks at Otto e Mezzo Bombana, Umberto Bombana's Shanghai outpost. It even has its own bourbon, bottled in the US, but labeled 1515 West and sold exclusively in this one bar.
Until the end of the year, the hotel has a deal on the Grand Premier rooms that gives guests a 600 yuan food and beverage credit to spend in the hotel's restaurants. Take a Grand Premier room, as it's worth the extra few hundred for access to the club lounge. Then blow that 600 yuan at the steakhouse.
For the carnivores among us, this is a testament to just how good a perfectly seared cut of beef can be.
