Five trendy new Shanghai hotels for party people, creative types, budget travellers and the cultured ultra-rich
The past year has seen a flurry of hotel openings designed to appeal to well-travelled trendsetters looking for something different. Here are five of the best
Several hotel openings in the past year have given Shanghai’s hospitality scene a lift. With China’s largest city, home to 24 million people, experiencing a cultural and financial boom, properties have opened to match that vibrancy.
These are our pick of the newcomers – there’s something to suit everyone.
1. The Shanghai Edition: for party people and well-heeled hipsters
If you were going to open a branch of UK private members club Soho House in Shanghai, it might look a bit like The Shanghai Edition. The hotel is large (bigger than its London and New York counterparts) and divided between two connected buildings – a modern skyscraper and a renovated art deco building that used to house the Shanghai Electric company. The cool, cavernous entrance is built to impress, while inside there is a private cinema and karaoke room, and modular meeting rooms that make the hotel perhaps the most fashionable business centre in Shanghai.
Entertainment is the focus of this hotel, which caters to well-travelled party people and is close to the Bund, right on the city’s pulse. There are eight bars, three restaurants (including a modern Japanese joint by Jason Atherton) and a nightclub.
The rooms have large windows – some offer almost 270-degree views of the Bund – while arty black-and-white photos by Hong Kong’s Wing Shya adorn the walls.
