A pot of jasmine tea overlooking the Yangtze river; a beer after a trip round a former abattoir; and dinner in a restaurant in a former early 20th century villa with 17 separate dining rooms and space for a full-size snooker table provided contrasting settings on a recent trip I made to taste the continually evolving food of Shanghai.
My tea companion at M on the Bund, which has provided the glamorous location for many meals since the Australian Michelle Garnaut had the foresight to open here in 1999, was the elegant and knowledgeable Lynn Pan. Born in Shanghai in the 1940s, Pan is one of only a handful of women left who have a comprehensive view of her city's food, on which she holds strong opinions.
“I can tell you right away what the best Shanghainese food isn't,” she told me firmly. “It isn't oily, over-sweet or too salty. I think that these are all myths that have been perpetuated by the Cantonese. But our food is different, partly because of the proximity to the sea and I think it has a lot in common with Japan. Unlike most Chinese we really enjoy cold first courses and we use seaweed, for example, in several dishes. There is a very strong emphasis on fish and shellfish.
“There are two other important factors. The first is that Shanghai has seen a continuous wave of immigrants who have brought their own dishes with them which have subsequently been subsumed as our own. We had a cook once who thought that borscht and curried chicken were Shanghainese but the former arrived with the White Russians and the second with the British. The other point is that this city has always focused on the future because its past has been so painful.”
Pan's opinions resonated as I sat down with Australian chef David Laris, who I had first met a decade ago when he had been in the vanguard of Australian chefs brought to London by Sir Terence Conran. Having opened Mezzo in Soho to great success, Laris was lured to Shanghai by the developers behind 3 on the Bund, directly opposite M on the Bund, which now houses Laris, Jean-Georges and the Whampoa Club restaurants.
“I arrived in 2003 with my wife, daughter and a fair bit of debt,” Laris explained with a smile, “but my timing could not have been better. Restaurants in China, and Shanghai in particular, have been developing very quickly but there is a great deal of money chasing not that many ideas.”
As a result, Laris today has a staff of more than 200, mainly in his restaurant. This includes six consultants who are working with him on a hotel project led by Swire in Beijing, opening later this year, as well as on the transformation of the building “1933” ten minutes from the Bund. A former concrete abattoir built in the round by British engineers and finally opened in 1933, it will over the coming year emerge as a mixed space. It will house a theatre, retail outlets, showrooms and a restaurant and bar on the top floor which Laris's vivid imagination will transform into a steak house with, he promises, lots of 1950s Hollywood glamour.
Laris has also developed a café, Slice, and an extraordinary chocolate business in which five of the six chocolatiers he now employs are deaf; he plans to formalise this arrangement, possibly by setting up a charitable trust to help deaf people working in the industry. Speaking about his work in China Laris said, “My consultancy role really keeps me on the edge which is what I love about it ... As someone who has been a chef for the past 20 years I can lead and inspire by example.”
Dinner also included a conversation with Jason Oakley, Laris's American head chef, who explained some of the particular pleasures of cooking in Shanghai. “We can get the most wonderful red clams, eels and frogs' legs, kingfish, turbot and live hamachi (yellowtail tuna). Vegetables are not that great on the whole because of the high pollution in the soil but it is a big advantage being relatively close to the Caspian and the source of caviar. Whenever, the local stock market jumps five to ten per cent we do sell a lot more caviar.”
This modern face of the city seemed far more distant than the 15-minute taxi ride from our hotel near the Bund to the narrow entrance to Fu 1088 in the former British quarter, where we were greeted by four doormen.
But then this was one of the most remarkable restaurants I have ever eaten in. Opened six months ago, Fu 1088 is a conversion of what must have been a remarkably spacious private villa. This has been done not only in keeping with the building's past but also a great deal of attention to the history of Shanghai's food.
Each former room has now been converted into a private dining room which can seat between two and 12 in the larger rooms under the roof. As well as the magnificent restored dark wooden hallway and staircase, each room also contains some well-restored or new replica furniture such as couches, chairs, coat stands and dressing tables with mirrors. One of the larger rooms even houses a piano.
There was definitely an air of expectancy and excitement among our group as we entered – heightened, in my case, by the presence of a large menu full of Shanghainese dishes, described in Mandarin and English.
Among the first courses were deep fried fish in sweet soy sauce; crisp eel strips in sweet chilli sauce which proved highly popular with someone who had not dared to try eel before, and chilled cucumber with soybeans in a spicy, sour sauce. Then steamed river shad with ham; sautéed Ba Bao, a mixed meat dish with spicy soy sauce; and dark cubes of pork in a thick, delicious sauce. As Pan had said, none of this was oily or overly sweet.
As we left, only the realisation that we had eaten so well prevented us from thinking we had just walked off a film set.
俯瞰长江品着一壶茉莉花茶；参观完昔日的屠宰场后喝着啤酒；在原是20世纪初的一座别墅的餐厅里用餐，这座餐厅有17个单独用餐雅间和一个全长台球桌，在我最近去上海品尝一直在改进的上海菜时，这些场面具有强烈的反差效果。
和我一起在M on the Bund餐厅喝茶的人是高雅而博学的林恩•潘（Lynn Pan）。自从澳大利亚人米歇尔•加诺特（Michelle Garnaut）富有远见地于1999年把该店开在此处，这里就提供了一个迷人的用餐地点。潘出生于上世纪40年代的上海，她是少数对上海菜有着全面看法的女性之一，她对上海菜的看法非常强烈。
“我可以马上告诉你，最好的上海菜不是什么样的，”她坚定的说，“它不油腻、不过甜，也不过咸。我认为，这些都是广东人永久建立起来的迷信。但我们上海菜是不同的，部分原因是我们临海，我认为上海菜与日本菜有很多共同点。与多数中国人不同，我们确实喜欢第一道冷盘菜，例如，我们在很多菜肴中加入了海藻。同时非常强调鱼和贝壳类海鲜。”
“还有两个其它重要因素。首先，源源不断的移民来到这里，他们带来了自己的菜肴，这些菜肴随后被吸收了进来，就像我们自己的上海菜一样。我们有一位厨师曾认为，罗宋汤和咖喱鸡都是上海菜，但罗宋汤来自白俄罗斯，咖喱鸡则来自英国。另外一点是，这个城市一直都关注未来，因为它的过去很痛苦。”
当我与澳大利亚厨师大卫•拉里斯（David Laris）坐下聊天时，潘的这些观点得到了认同。我第一次与拉里斯见面是在10年前，当时他是第一批被特伦斯•康兰（Terence Conran）爵士带到伦敦的澳大利亚厨师。拉里斯在Soho开设的Mezzo餐厅取得了巨大成功，之后他被外滩3号（3 on the Bund）的开发商吸引到了上海，外滩3号就位于M on the Bund的正对面，这里聚集着拉里斯餐厅、Jean-Georges和黄浦会（Whampoa Club）餐厅。
“2003年，我与我的妻子、女儿一起来到了上海，同时还背着一些债务，”拉里斯带着微笑解释道，“但我来的时机再好不过了。中国（尤其是上海）的餐厅发展非常迅速，这里资金很多，但创意却没那么多。”
拉里斯如今拥有200多名员工，多数在他的餐厅工作。其中包括6名咨询顾问，他们正与他合作，研究太古（Swire）牵头的一个北京酒店项目（该项目将于今年晚些时候启动）以及对距离外滩10分钟车程的建筑“1933老场坊”的改造项目。这座原先由英国工程师建造的大理石圆形屠宰场于1933年开业，未来一年，它将变成一处综合设施。其中将建设一座戏院、零售门店、展厅以及顶层的餐吧，在那里，拉里斯的生动想象将变为一间牛排餐厅，他承诺，那里将体现出大量上世纪50年代的好莱坞风情。
拉里斯还开了一间名为Slice的咖啡馆和一个特别的巧克力店，在店里的6名巧克力制作师中，有5名是聋子；他计划将这种模式正式化，可能会创建一家慈善信托，帮助在这个行业工作的聋子。在谈到在中国的工作时，拉里斯表示：“我的顾问角色确实让我处于潮流的前端，这是我喜欢它的一点……作为一位有20年经验的厨师，我能够通过实例带领并激发其他人。”
在这里用餐还包括与拉里斯餐厅的美国厨师长詹森•奥克利(Jason Oakley)谈话，他向我解释了一些上海烹调的独特美妙之处。“我们可以得到最上乘的蛤蜊、鳝鱼、田鸡腿、无鳔石首鱼、大比目鱼和活油甘鱼（黄色尾巴的金枪鱼）。这里的蔬菜不那么好，因为这里的土壤高度污染，但一个巨大优势在于，这里距离里海和鱼子酱产地相对较近。无论何时，只要国内股市上涨5%到10%，我们卖出的鱼子酱就会增加很多。”
相对于从我们紧邻外滩的酒店到原英国领事馆的福1088（Fu 1088）的狭窄入口的15分钟出租车车程，上海的现代面貌似乎更为遥远，在那里，迎接我们的是4位门童。
但这里是我曾品尝过的最出色的餐厅之一。福1088建于6个月前，由一座非常宽敞的私人别墅改造而成。这样做不仅仅是为了与这栋建筑的历史保持一致，而且还为了让人们大量关注上海菜的历史。
所有以前的房间都被改造为一个个私人用餐雅间，可以容纳两人到12人不等。除了重新恢复后壮观的黑暗的木质走廊和楼梯之外，每个房间都配有一些经过复原或一些新的家具复制品，例如沙发、座椅、衣帽架和戴镜子的梳妆台。在一个大一些的雅间内甚至还放着一部钢琴。
在我们进入这家餐厅时，我们确实对这里充满着期待和兴奋。这里满是上海菜的长长的菜单让我更加充满期待，菜单用中英两种文字写成。
第一道菜有甜酱油炸鱼；甜辣酱汁脆鳝（对于那些以前从不敢尝试鳝鱼的人而言，这道菜很受欢迎）；酸辣黄豆配冰镇黄瓜。然后是火腿清蒸鲥鱼；酱烧八宝（一道由多种肉和辣酱汁烧制的菜）；红烧肉。就像潘所说的，这些菜既不油腻也不过甜。
起身离开时，若不是意识到刚刚美食一顿，我们简直觉得自己是从电影场景里走出来。 |
