Elite Traveler January-February 2015

EXPLORE SHANGHAI

FOOD & DRINK

People watch The pastry chef

Kim Lyle’s Shanghai story is a sweet one. The South African Pastry Chef came to Shanghai in 2010 to help launch Jason Atherton’s Table No. 1 at The Waterhouse hotel – the first restaurant in Atherton’s award-winning global gourmet empire. In Shanghai, Lyle married Table No. 1’s executive chef Scott Melvin and the pair went on to open another Atherton hotspot, The Commune Social, in a former British police station. Behind the sit-up dessert bar, Lyle can be found – often armed with a blowtorch or smoking dry-ice canister – conjuring up artful creations such as crunchy peanut ice cream with red berries and salted peanut caramel. communesocial.com

CHEF FOCUS TONY LU

SHANGHAI’S FIRST CELEBRITY CHEF Mainland Chinese chefs are rarely known outside their kitchens. Tony Lu is a notable exception. The Shanghai chef began his career wok-frying vegetables in a Cantonese kitchen. Today, aged 38, he oversees five acclaimed Shanghai restaurants, one of which was named 26th on San Pellegrino’s Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2014 list. Judges described villa-restaurant Fu1015 as serving “pitch-perfect traditional Shanghainese cooking”. In 2013, Mandarin Oriental Shanghai chose Lu to be Chef Consultant at Yong Yi Ting, one of the few five-star hotel restaurants in the city dedicated to local regional cuisine. His menu masterfully updates classic Shanghai dishes – such as chilled hairy crab with vinegar jelly and ginger sauce – and chimes well with the sommelier-selected wine list. His latest restaurant, Fu He Hui, focuses on high-end Chinese vegetarian dishes in an alluring three-story Zen space with incense-scented private dining suites. Here, Lu combines locally-farmed, seasonal produce with haute culinary techniques. Think pigeon-egg scramble with black truffles and whole fresh morels. mandarinoriental.com/shanghai

“For a dessert with a Shanghai twist try The Commune Social’s Osmanthus panna cotta with sour red plum granita, inspired by the intoxicating osmanthus scent that floods the city each autumn”

Kim Lyle, pastry chef, The Commune Social