Four of the restaurants leading Shanghai’s vegetarian revolution, including Michelin-star Fu He Hui and Dashu Wujie – heaven for mushroom lovers
- A growing number of trendy Shanghai restaurants are serving high-end Chinese vegetarian food
- We visit four highly regarded meat-free establishments where the vegetables are the star of every dish
Shanghai is home to a growing number of Chinese vegetarian restaurants, which offer far more variety than salads and veggie burgers. And thanks to food review apps such as Dianpang and Meituan, finding them is becoming easier.
When Lakeside Veggie opened last year, it took hours to get a table, but the hype has died down, so we were seated immediately even without a reservation. The original restaurant is by West Lake in the city of Hangzhou, from which it took its poetic name; the Shanghai restaurant is in a mall, so before you ask, no, it does not offer a view over water.
It does, however, offer a table d’hôte menu at the attractive price of 258 yuan (US$36) for two, and you could eat à la carte for less. The set menu includes five main dishes and a matsutake soup served in a teacup. One of its signature dishes, deep- fried lotus root with sweet and sour sauce – was not available, so the waitress suggested replacing it with a similarly priced pan-fried sticky rice cake with osmanthus.
The only letdown was the rice, which arrived half an hour late, by which time all the other dishes were cold. To make up for it, we were offered free desserts – mung bean cakes – to take away.
