By Mike Norton
Commune Reserve has been serving all-day comfort food at its Shanghai spots since 2016 — brunch through to 2 a.m. on weekends, with dishes from RMB 42 to RMB 128.
We like a place that refuses to pick a lane. Brunch, lunch, dinner, cocktails, a bar that keeps going after the plates have gone back.
Most restaurants choose one of those and quietly neglect the rest. Commune has been doing the whole arc since 2016, and the Reserve tier is simply the version that has had longest to get it right.
Ten years is a considerable stretch in this city. Nothing here feels like a first attempt.
The space
The room has plainly been thought about: floor-to-ceiling windows, timber underfoot, banquettes in tan leather.
Add a terrace at the back, pale wooden tables, a view of Yuyuan Lu getting on with its browsing, and you’re inclined to settle in.
The food
We started with the Burrata & Fig Salad (RMB 128), sheets of Parma ham generously draped across it.
Figs split open, roasted cherry tomatoes in yellow and red, black olives, basil, a balsamic that’s sharply sweet rather than merely dark.
The burrata sits in pride of place at the center with a proper give. To say it’s a salad is technically true; in practice it’s a substantial gift of a plate.
The “Angry” Cauliflower (RMB 52) is offered ‘Friendly’ or ‘Furious,’ and comes with a dial. Ordered Friendly, it’s mild. Ordered Furious, it means it.
Cauliflower is a difficult thing to fry — all that water waiting to turn the coating to gravel — but these arrive properly crisp, lacquered in a gochujang glaze that’s fiery and glossy, scattered with sesame and sliced red chili.
It eats like the vegetable cousin of Korean fried chicken.
The Hummus (RMB 68) comes in a portion that’s built to share.
Textured rather than smooth, sharp with lemon, seasoned rather than merely salted, with oil and whole chickpeas over the top and warm pita to tear.
Big enough to be a meal too — a problem only if, like us, you’ve ordered eight other things.
And then the Reuben Wagyu Cheese Roll (RMB 62), which is a reason in itself to come.
A Reuben rebuilt as a spring roll: shatteringly crisp pastry, sauerkraut and Wagyu beef and cheddar inside, oozing at the seam, cut on the bias so you can see the damage.
It comes with a Thousand Island that’s piquant, smoky, and carries a sly bit of heat, with sweet potato chips on the side, which give a satisfyingly audible crunch.
The Carbonara (RMB 72) is the quiet confirmation the kitchen knows its stuff.
Creamy without collapsing, earthy with mushroom, pasta properly al dente, and a poached egg on top doing its thing when you break it.
A handful of arugula for brightness, and all of it works together harmoniously.
The Oxtail Grilled Cheese (RMB 78) takes dark marbled sourdough-rye, presses it, toasts it, and fills it with cheddar, mozzarella, braised oxtail and beef cheek, jalapeño, and balsamic onions.
Oozy and rich, with the jalapeño arriving to cut through it just in time.
Ray’s Original Beef Bowl (RMB 89) is named after a regular customer. We’d like to meet Ray, because this is a fine thing to have your name on.
Steak with the decency to remain pink, avocado, roasted brassicas, pickled onion, grains beneath, a fat yolk over the top.
“Healthy and delicious” is usually some kind of compromise. Here both words earn their keep.
The Sticky Ribs (RMB 128) have been on this menu since day one, and they earn their place on texture as much as flavor — crisp outside under a crumb of sesame, soft within, sweet and spicy, finished with chili and scallion.
A real crowd pleaser of a dish to get stuck into.
Dessert was the Date Apple Pie (RMB 42): crumb-topped, dusted with sugar, cinnamon through it, a sharp lemon curd on the side to stop the sweetness running away with itself.
A scoop of coconut ice cream served alongside does the job cream usually does.
Something to drink
To drink, the Pistachio Cocoa Rooibos (RMB 38) sounds like a dessert but behaves like a tea — cocoa-dusted foam, a dried orange wheel on top.
No caffeine, no regrets.
It sits within a capacious list of non-alcoholic options, alongside a proper beer selection, which runs from a soft German wheat to a punchy seven percent West Coast IPA.
Comfort food, thought through. It’s the most modest promise a restaurant can make, and the hardest to keep — year after year, table after table.
Doing it every service for 10 years, across a menu that runs from brunch to last orders, is the harder trick.
A decade in, it’s still the real deal.
Good to know
Reservations: 6226 2510
Sun–Wed, 11:30 a.m.–midnight; Thu–Sat, 11:30 a.m.–2 a.m.
- Yuyuan Lu: Commune Reserve, 1107 Yuyuan Lu, near Fenggang Lu, Changning District
- SWFC: B1-109, SWFC (Sunken Plaza), No. 100 Century Ave., Pudong New Area
- Réel: 1E, L1, Réel Department Store (next to West Entrance escalator), 1601 West Nanjing Rd., Jing’an District
- Ruihong Tiandi: L1-21A, 1F, Ruihong Tiandi, The Hall of the Moon, No. 188 Ruihong Rd., Hongkou District
- Lee Gardens: L1-15, Lee Gardens Shanghai, No. 688 Xinzha Rd., Jing’an District
- Biyun: 1F, No. 12, Biyunli Commercial Street, 420 Lane, Biyun Road, Jinqiao Town, Pudong New Area
- The Bund: Room L1-A11, Building A, No. 198 Fuzhou Road, Huangpu District
- The Lightbox: L1-101-102, The Lightbox, No. 218 Tianmu West Rd., Jing’an District
- Crystal Bridge: L1-02-03, T3, Crystalbridge, No. 688 Tianshan Rd., Changning District
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