Home and away

The crumbling stone walls that surround the Tian Zi Fang neighbourhood in Shanghai belie a colourful and fascinating corner of the city, with a cosmopolitan mixture of shops, restaurants and galleries.

Its cluster of tiny Shikumen cottages, some brightly painted, others their original dull grey, are criss-crossed by narrow alleys festooned with colourful banners, Chinese lanterns and the odd bit of revolutionary zeal. It's a place of contrasts, reflecting China's past and future, and is as much home to locals as to foreign entrepreneurs, designers and tourists.

Inside the former 1920s commune, the smells of Thai noodles, Italian coffee and ginseng tea waft through the photo galleries, CD stores and boutiques. Symbols of the Great Leap Forward are mixed with modern iconography: hanging in a makeshift al fresco gallery, chisel-jawed communist soldiers are juxtaposed with KFC logos and the golden arches of McDonald's, and in a silk boutique figurines of Mao dressed in a green great coat are immersed in an aquarium with Chinese carp.

In the courtyard, diners chat over slabs of French toast, and the sizzle of eggs, bacon and sausages cooking on a barbeque echoes off the stone walls. Early risers lift French-styled coffee bowls with both hands, their faces momentarily disappearing behind ceramic moons.

Kommune was the first Western restaurant to start up in Tian Zi Fang, opening to meet the caffeine needs of a band of Australian expatriates.

'We had a small advertising agency in one of the back lanes and there was nowhere to eat and certainly nowhere to have coffee,' says Melburnian restaurateur Kirk Jobsz.