There’s no better way to understand how East meets West than by visiting Yongfoo Elite, an 18-year-old club restaurant in the heart of Shanghai’s former French Concession.

Tucked away in the winding streets of the former British Consulate General, Yongfoo Elite became a popular hangout for fashion insiders and the cultural elite in its early days.

The courtyard where eras collide consists of a Chinese garden, a contemporary glass house and a 1930s Spanish house. For one, you’ll be teleported to a scene from an Irene Chang novel, or perhaps a Wang Kar Wai movie set.

The famous place was featured in glossy magazines and used as the background for the 2008 Pirelli calendar.

Yongfoo Elite is the brainchild of 69-year-old Shanghai-based Xingzheng Wang, who was one of the country’s first successful menswear designers in the 80s. His brand, his Sha-Er-Wei (later he was Jun Long), became one of the first Chinese brands to enter department stores. By the ’90s, he had over 30 doors across the country.

But an impulsive fashion personality, Wang fell in love with fashion in the 90s and abruptly closed the brand and turned to the restaurant business. Yongfoo Elite was his third venture and became his life’s work.

During Shanghai’s first two months of COVID-19 lockdown, Wang continued to renovate the space, adding ancient stone decorations and tearing down walls along the way to make it look somewhat unfashionable. .

He also launched a new fine dining venture at Yongfoo Elite, perhaps on a whim, to explore his renewed interest in fusion cuisine.

To spearhead this new experiment, Wang has hired Noma-trained Chinese chef Chang Liu. He tailored the menu to include dishes such as Shanghai-style oiled tarts with caviar and Wagyu beef with Shanghai vegetables. soy sauce ice cream.

Wang likens his new project to an investigation of Chinese and Western cultures, the cultures embedded in the Shanghai psyche.

“Shanghai has always been known for its petite bourgeois sensibility. The key word is petite. “After New China was born, it blossomed into what we call the ‘haipai’ Shanghai style. We welcome all that is foreign and new and transform it culturally to make it more local. “

Wang notes that consumers are newly drawn to a more “aesthetically driven” dining experience.

“Chinese food, shared at round tables and often cooked over an open fire, can be described as uncivilized, but it has a certain secular charm. Mentally, we stay true to our family-oriented consciousness.”

Wang, a Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant serving Shanghai cuisine, recently analyzed two styles of cuisine that have received equal attention at Yongfoo Elite. “In fact, we often talk about the ‘technique’ of Chinese cooking, but rarely about the ‘art’ of cooking,” he adds Wang. “But Western cuisine has become a sensory feast for personal enjoyment.”

His friend, the noted novelist Jin Yucheng, encouraged Wang to start writing a biography, but he preferred to spend more time on Yongfoo Elite.

The big change is that the private lounge area, Caixiang Study, is now an extended section of the ‘Keep It Quiet’ bar. Traditionally, the study was a space to look into the creator’s mind, but here you can get a glimpse of the king’s interior design process. His favorite fashion designs, such as collage and grafting, focused on his technique. exposed the walls of the building to reveal layers of colorful decay. He got rid of the Ming Dynasty monastery bed, but left a set of ’60s Gucci sofas and plans to add vintage furniture to make the space cozier.

It all means a little hassle. “I like designing spaces in the same way I design clothes. It could involve seven or eight different aesthetics, but I break the boundaries,” Wang said. increase.

He calls Yongfoo Elite a work of “cross-pollination” of different styles. He likes to host open mic performances, like his events, where artists, folk musicians and poets come and improvise as they please. At the core of his work, however, the principles of Eastern naturalism are sought. Wang juggles the idea of ​​’just right’, leaving room for an unplanned serendipity rarely seen in Shanghai, where his media-driven cafés and bistros are expanding.

Pointing to the bare pillar in the center of the lounge area, Wang says it was designed by a handyman.

Wang says his designs are “more like a lifestyle setup than a holistic design concept.” He hates being called a businessman and banishes business practices. Instead, he is free to create his own.

“This is something that people with a lot of money don’t try to build, and they can’t build. It’s a reflection of personal reality rather than an outward pursuit,” he says.

Wang said a place like Yongfoo Elite would probably never happen again, and after he retired, the government agreed to preserve it as a cultural institution. “It started as a crazy idea, but when the idea hit me, I completely let myself go.”