A former local’s guide to Shanghai

The whole “live like a local” travel trend exploited by Airbnb has its limitations, and even those who leapt on the bandwagon are beginning to tire of it.

No, we don’t want to get the bus 40 minutes into the centre of town, or eat at your neighbourhood greasy spoon. We don’t want to fly overseas just to carry on living our ordinary lives. 

Sometimes what tourists really want is to balance their must-see itinerary with less obvious sites that convey the atmosphere or personality of a place, without the massive signposts pointing in their direction.

So having lived in Shanghai and travelled back as a tourist, I’ve had a chance to distil my experiences down to what I miss most when I’m not there. 

Street food

Prime time for street food in Shanghai is before 10am and after 10pm. Every neighbourhood has its hotspot — a queue outside is the surest sign of quality. But I’m partial to the vendors near my old flat on Wulumuqi Road in the French Concession area, who fire up their grills at sunrise and by noon have left without a trace. I’ll pick up half a dozen fried dumplings and set off towards Hunan Road on the Art Deco streets of the French Concession. 

If I have a free hour I’ll loop around to the apartment buildings at 868 Huashan Road. In the basement of the B block is the Propaganda Poster Art Center (shanghaipropagandaart.com), a warren lit with fluorescents and hung with utopian workers’ scenes from Maoist China, whose cartoonish style belie their disturbing origins. It’s the only Shanghai museum I’ve been to more than, oh, five times. 

1920s architecture

While Shanghai’s distinctive 20th-century architecture is being chipped away to make space for skyscrapers, Yuyuan Road still retains its character from the 1920s — all “time-honoured” shops and Art Deco laneway houses topped with red clay roofs. Though the restaurants are gradually flipping to more Western offerings, you can still find the local xiaolongbao, or soup dumplings, and deep bowls of tangy dumpling soup. In Shanghai, these are two very different things. 

Family restaurant Fu Chun at 650 Yuyuan Road is a big, bustling throwback, its mahogany and stained-glass dining room shaded by mature plane trees. I’ll go there after a spot of shopping. Recently I discovered InShop at the eastern end of Yuyuan Road, tucked behind the flamboyant, gilt-roofed Jing’an Temple. It looks remarkably basic, connected to the Jing’an Metro station, but it’s the only shopping mall around with an entire floor dedicated to small Chinese brands such as the leather-crafter Kraken. 

Xintiandi

There are two reasons to visit Xintiandi, the pedestrianised shopping district rebuilt in the traditional shikumen style. The first is Nanshufang (nanshufang.com.cn), an antique showroom with “scholarly arts” workshops like incense-making and calligraphy — it sits discreetly atop a Shanghai Tang boutique.

Whether or not that’s your jam, book a table at Xintiandi’s other great asset: Crystal Jade (12 A-B, 2F, South Block Xintiandi, 123 Xingye Road). The kitchen plates up all the Shanghainese hits, like sweet roasted pork belly, meaty short ribs and slippery noodles, everything doused in piquant signature sauces. Further along Xingye Road is the old grey-brick house where the Communist Party held its first meeting (zgyd1921.com). I like to carry on north from here and turn left at the rocket-shaped Tomorrow Square tower. At Nanjing Road and Shimen 1st Road, you can’t miss the massive rotunda that houses the world’s biggest, and probably busiest, Starbucks. I go to witness the enthusiasm with which the locals have taken to it. 

Parks

Shanghai’s parks recall ancient landscape paintings, with their groaning willows and half-moon bridges reflected in glassy ponds. But when you get 23 million people tussling over a patch of green, they become less of a refuge. Xujiahui Park (986 Zhaojiabang Road) is different. 

Planted over the ruins of a rubber factory just south of the French Concession, it feels relaxed and local, with benches in corners dripping with green and a modern “sky bridge” floating among the treetops. To the south you can just about see the Gothic spire of the French-built Jesuit cathedral, and if you follow the paths snaking along the pond, you can watch couples dressed in wedding gowns and tuxes, posing for hired photographers. Just stay away from the overrun children’s playground. It’s like a scene from Lord of the Flies. 

Sunny Beach

I’m lucky to have survived the worst of summer in Shanghai, when the mercury frequently hovers around 40C. When I couldn’t blag my way into a hotel pool I’d spend the afternoon at Sunny Beach (421 Waima Road), an acre of prime riverfront blanketed with imported sand. 

I wouldn’t recommend swimming in the city’s Huangpu River, but the breeze from the water keeps temperatures down, and a team of waiters stands by to deliver drinks from the bar. It feels rather surreal, luxuriating in a swimsuit on an umbrella-shaded lounger while the tallest skyscrapers on the continent blink their LED screens at you from the other side of the river. The slick Waterhouse Hotel on the street behind the beach just reopened its rooftop deck, where you can enjoy the full, flashy effect of those towers at night.

Details: Shanghai

Virgin, British Airways and Air China fly direct from London to Shanghai from around £350 return.