As we enter a new millennium, the Shanghainese are re-establishing their presence on the international restaurant scene, harnessing their natural talent for fashioning spectacular, larger-than-life paeans, to pleasure. Dining in Shanghai is an exhilarating experience because whether you’re people watching at Three on The Bund, delighting in slivers of tea smoked eggs slathered in caviar at Whampoa Club, jostling with families at Bao Luo or steeping yourself in Zen minimalism at Shintori, you’re left in no doubt that you’re in Shanghai. Its in the energy, the ambience and the people. Each dining destination may be dazzlingly different and stupendously stylish, yet its the frisson that the city thrillingly creates - as it almost casually melds a pinch of the East with a dash of the West, a measure of history with a shot of the future - that is so unique and intoxicating.

It is only natural that a contemporary Chinese, new Shanghainese gustatory revolution should take seed in this city of acute contrast and sublime fusion. The desire to push the envelope, without losing its sense of self, has always been at the heart of this city’s fiesty spirit. Shanghai is a city like no other. It possesses an aesthetic, a style, a way of living that enraptures both the heart and mind. To sup at Shanghai’s table is to savour the pleasures of life itself.