One of the most well known Chinese restaurants in London, Shanghai Blues more than lives up to the hype.

The Venue
This is an infamously stylish restaurant, and for good reason: it’s very, very stylish. After the entrance hall is a medium-sized bar area, with businesspeople propping up the bar and filling the seats. The restaurant area is cavernously huge, with enormous blue lamps hanging from the ceiling. (They’re so big they’re almost the size of the tables below them.) Along one wall is a mural of a cherry tree on a red background. Everything is very modern, but not in a stark, white way – in a trendy way.

The Atmosphere
Shanghai Blues is on High Holborn, so expect big groups of celebrating lawyers. The restaurant is quite loud (they have live music some nights as well) and the lights are dimmed, making it seem like you’re eating in a nightclub. Besides the lawyers, though, the crowd is mixed with couples and even a family or two with a small child. Service is not intrusive and staff are well prepared to answer questions about the food and give recommendations. Although the service seems quick, time seems to go by very quickly at Shanghai Blues. Maybe it’s the lights, maybe it’s the music – but whatever the reason, you’ll look at your watch and see that you’ve been there for hours and wonder how that happened.

The Food
The food is on the expensive side, with prices ranging from £8 (vegetarian) to £29 (sea bass) and higher for crab and lobster. Dim sum is served as well. This isn’t exactly the place to pop in on a whim; it is, however, perfect for a special occasion, and the food tastes very high quality. Although a lot of the food on the menu is recognisable by English standards, it’s served in the traditional Chinese way – you spoon some of your main onto a small bowl of rice, and then shovel everything in with chopsticks.

From the starters menu, the barbecued Chilean sea bass rolls look like spring rolls but they’ll surprise you by how much better they taste, with tender, flaky fish and a spicy and sweet sauce. The chicken and won ton soup is surprising as well – besides being spicy, with tender, juicy chicken in the dumplings, it’s brought out in a clay pot on top of a small metal contraption with a tea light underneath to keep things warm. And if you dig around a bit in the soup you might find an actual piece of chicken on the bone.

There are loads of choices for mains, but particularly recommended ones include the pan-grilled diver’s scallops with Shanghai herbs and peppercorn, and braised pork belly with herbs in sweet vinegar. The creamy and fresh scallops, mixed with water chestnuts and peppers, are coated in a light brown, slightly spicy vinegar sauce. According to the menu, the braised pork belly is a typical Shanghai dish, and lucky for them, because this is absolutely delicious. The pork belly is red and glossy from the sweet vinegar sauce that it’s been braised in, and the vegetables at the bottom of the dish soak up the extra sauce wonderfully. There’s a layer of fat running under the skin of the pork, but instead of making the meat greasy it makes it even more tender and juicy.

Desserts are really varied and interesting as well – you can go for a trio of ice creams with flavours like jasmine tea, sesame and red bean. Some of the more original choices though include a crumbly green tea pancake with blueberry sauce and red bean ice cream (which tastes like a thick, slightly grainy version of vanilla) and the sweetened black sesame dumplings. Almost purple in colour, these coconut-covered dumplings are described as glutinous which is really the best way to describe them – thick and gloopy, but dry on the outside and with a warm sesame cream in the centre. They’re a really original dessert, but quite filling.

The Drink
If you’re low on cash, skip right over the fine wine list which can run to over more than £500 per bottle. The rest of the wine list is thankfully a bit more reasonable, with prices starting at about £26. The Saint Claire Rapaura Reserve Merlot from New Zealand is a respectable choice, medium-bodied and dry but not overly so – a nice choice with pork.

Shanghai Blues also does a really creative cocktail list, with prices from about £7 - £8. Some of the choices include a watermelon margarita, black cherry sour and a honeydew melon martini, as well as classic drinks like a Singapore Sling and a Bloody Mary.

The Last Word
A cool atmosphere and very tasty food. It might be a little too pricey for an everyday dinner, but Shanghai Blues is definitely recommended for a special occasion.

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