Hamilton House Shanghai

I popped in for dinner the other night at the relatively new done up Hamilton House on the junction of Fuzhou Lu and Jiangxi Lu. If nothing else the restaurant affords a view of the Fuzhou/Jiangxi intersections which has to be one of the most beautiful, impressive and (after about 7pm) deserted major circuses in any city. The former Shanghai Municipal Council building, the Central Police Station and the Metropole Hotel are all viewable while eating.

I’ll leave someone more knowledgeable than me to comment of the food which I’m told is “French in the traditional way” but I wouldn’t know about any of that. Tasted all right to me.

Still the building was a Sir Victor Sassoon property and designed by the well known and prolific (in Shanghai) architects Turner & Palmer. It was completed in 1934 and is a fine art-deco property. I’m pretty sure the American Consulate had offices here for some time and many Japanese and other international companies. There’s some penthouse apartments and a rooftop garden though of course, like everywhere, else it was wildly subdivided after 1949 and has around 1,500 people living in it for many years and plenty are still there.

Of course they push the old ‘remember the glamour of 1930s Shanghai’ line (it has a vague 30s feel but, of course, like so much retro-Shanghai, it's a contemporary take on the 30s and feels more 1980s wine bar than authentically 1930s). So a recreation of the 30s it only vaguely is, and then through a 21st century prism but it is a nice location and worth a visit.

Hamilton House

137 Fuzhou Lu,

near Jiangxi Lu

6321-0586