Last week a friend came over from London for a week with his girlfriend, to visit me of course, but also to celebrate his birthday somewhere a bit different from the White Horse in Brixton.
He wasn't disappointed, not least because we went to the Shangri-La's fine dining effort, Jade on 36, for his birthday blow-out.
Now hotel dining in Shanghai is often tarred with the same brush as hotel dining is all around the world. There are lots of eat and drink all you can Champagne brunches (good value, but not exactly discerning) and "Global-village-world-food-stations" where cuisines from everywhere from Kerala to Kentucky are shoe-horned into a menu.
But at the Shangri-La they have managed to create a restaurant that means business, both in terms of those looking to impress their guests (a view across the financial centre Pudong or back to the West and the Bund) and those who come looking for serious food.
Even better is that for the latter they have done this not by securing the signature of a Gordon Ramsay or a Joel Robuchon, but a relatively unknown French chef called Paul Pairet.
Pairet comes from Montpelier but first came to Asia in the early nineties. Now in his early forties, he has built a strong reputation in Shanghai for an innovative approach to flavours and the odd madcap piece of presentation.
The menu consists just of tasting selections, four in total but with each of the four available in four-, six- or eight-course versions. I had a kind of sardine parfait with pain epice (actually the weakest of what was to come); then sashimi presented on long, bendy metal stalks (resembling those goggly eyes we used to wear as kids); an incredible dish which simply topped toasted brioche with truffle and a foamy version of beurre meuniere; a giant prawn steamed for 45 minutes in a kilner jar (which it is also served in) with lemongrass and orange juice; a beef rib cut right back so three inches of the meat remained in the middle of a totally clean bone and then roasted and served with a eggy pureed potato; and then wonderful puddings.
Now Pairet uses lots of foams and all those agents and chemical tricks beloved of the new school of kitchen wizadry. But his menus are also simple, and show off one idea per dish.
But how good is each of those single ideas? The foaming beurre meuniere on bread and steamed prawn dish were both creations that made me put down my knife and fork in the hope that I could drag out the act of eating each mouthful for a lifetime.
Anyway, I really share all this because it also made me wonder about Asia and Michelin stars.
I know this is like those hypothetical debates seven year olds have about whether He-Man would beat Spiderman ("yes", by the way) but if Michelin did ever spread the New York experiment further around the world and came to China, on current standards I reckon Jade on 36 could be worth two stars.
And I'm not sure there are any others who could match that in Shanghai, in a hotel or otherwise.
Comments (3)
Hey Dan,
Sounds great, you made me hungry! What sort of price, you said it was £50 for Jean Georges, what about this one?
When is your next article due?
Take care my friend
Nico
Posted by Nicolas Mori | May 14, 2007 1:25 PM
Posted on May 14, 2007 13:25
Nico, allo allo. It was about £55. And we had about seven courses. Oh, and I have since found out from a chef who used to work there that the prawns were steamed in the kilner jars for about 12 mins - not 45. Apologies, that was the waiter who told me that, and as we all know, waiters know nothing!!
Posted by DanBignold | May 15, 2007 4:58 PM
Posted on May 15, 2007 16:58
Nico, allo allo. It was about £55. And we had about seven courses. Oh, and I have since found out from a chef who used to work there that the prawns were steamed in the kilner jars for about 12 mins - not 45. Apologies, that was the waiter who told me that, and as we all know, waiters know nothing!!
Posted by DanBignold | May 15, 2007 5:00 PM
Posted on May 15, 2007 17:00