7-year Michelin tasting menu for 2 at Shanghai Tavern: ¥888 (2 drinks). Wagyu tartare, yellow croaker fish & chips, White Rabbit mousse. Call +86 21 5368 9511
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By Mike Norton
Yet Shanghai Tavern, which occupies a handsome ground-floor corner of The Shanghai EDITION on East Nanjing Road, has achieved just that.
And they made the list again in 2026
And the good news is that they’ve distilled that seven years of deliciousness into one tasting menu. Consider it their greatest hits collection.
Chef Rossi Wei
Chef Rossi Wei's kitchen speaks modern European with a Shanghainese accent, and the result is a menu that manages to feel both polished and genuinely alive.
Bag a window seat if you can—the hubbub of Nanjing Road rolling past the glass is, it turns out, the perfect accompaniment.
Let’s start at the beginning, which, in this case, is Aussie Wagyu Beef Tartare—one of those dishes that can set a restaurant apart from the mundane.
The dish displays Shanghai Tavern’s attention to detail. Two cuts of Australian Wagyu are hand-cut (not brutalized through a mincer)—the tenderloin offering sweetness, the oyster blade providing something meatier to work against.
There are capers, raw onion, garlic, a slick of egg yolk, and truffle dressing.
The plating has a pleasing looseness to it, elegant without being uptight.
Next, a Jin Cured Xinjiang Trout. This is Chef Wei's take on gravlax, and the freshwater fish—which can lean earthy in the wrong hands—is reined in beautifully by the botanicals from the cure.
Juniper, a bright slash of yuzu, and then—lurking underneath—a nanru sauce made from fermented soy that provides a low, savory murmur you don't quite expect.
It is a subtle, expertly crafted dish.
Shanghai Fish and Chips. Now, look. I am from the UK. I have opinions about fish and chips that border on the theological.
So when I tell you that Shanghai Tavern's version—made with yellow croaker from the East China Sea rather than cod or haddock—is genuinely delicious, please understand the weight of that statement.
The batter is tissue-thin and shatteringly crisp. The fish inside is sweeter and more delicate than its British equivalent.
Minted mushy peas, tartare sauce, everything correct.
The Shanghai spin makes it feel like a love letter to the original rather than a photocopy.
Mac & Cheese. On a tasting menu. I could hear my inner cynic clearing his throat, readying a speech.
He was silenced by the first mouthful.
The cheese sauce is sharp and properly rich—a hint of tangy blue in there—and it comes crowned with a slow-cooked beef ragu that elevates it from side dish into main event.
My dining companion and I had entered into a verbal contract regarding the equal division of all dishes. This was the dish where that contract was breached.
The Char Grilled Iberico Pork Chop arrives with the kind of char that you don't get from a kitchen blowtorch, but only from actual fire—deep, smoky, caramelized.
The fat has rendered to something approaching the magnificent. Marinated in herbs, garlic, honey and black pepper, grilled over fruitwood charcoal.
Served with a caramelized onion jus that is sticky and deeply savory and made us want to pick the bone up with our hands (which we did not do, because we were in The EDITION and trying to behave).
There is also a steak upgrade—M3 sirloin or rib eye for an extra 100 RMB—should you wish.
But honestly, the pork is the thing.
Dessert is a Longjing and White Rabbit Chocolate Mousse.
White Rabbit, for those who have not had the pleasure, is a Chinese milk candy of extraordinary cultural potency.
It is childhood.
It is memory.
It is Saturday afternoons and grandmothers and corner shops.
Here, its milky vanilla sweetness is woven through a mousse and set against the subtle, grassy bitterness of Longjing green tea.
It is clever and nostalgic and indulgently good.
The cocktails—two included with the menu—deserve mention. The HuangPu Mist, named for the great river that courses through the city, is a fine concoction of rum, passion fruit, lemon and ginger—warm, tropical, clean, wonderfully companionable with the food.
Here's the thing about Shanghai Tavern. It is not trying to astonish you. It is not attempting to reinvent the wheel, deconstruct the wheel, or serve you the wheel on a bed of foam with a side of intellectual justification.
This is a greatest hits menu in the most literal sense—seven years of figuring out what works, then having the confidence to just do that, beautifully.
A small number of dishes, proper ingredients, real skill, a good-looking room.
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Seven Michelin years don't lie. They send you out into the Shanghai bustle well fed and genuinely happy, which, when you think about it, was always the whole point.
Sharing Menu for Two, including two drinks, is RMB888.
Call +86 21 5368 9511 to make a reservation.
Shanghai Tavern, 1/F Heritage Building, The Shanghai EDITION, 199 Nanjing Dong Lu, by Henan Zhong Lu, Huangpu District 南京东路199号辅楼1楼, 近河南中路
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