Going to Taipei in Taiwan? Visit hip Zhongshan district for its food, hotels and shopping

Once the Taiwanese capital’s red-light district, Zhongshan is the place for hip bars and restaurants, fashion shopping and bookstores

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Dusty workshops and hardware stores exist alongside trendy new cafes and lifestyle shops on Chifeng Street in Taipei’s Zhongshan district. Photo: Mavis Teo

Published: 7:15am, 6 Aug 2024Updated: 12:56pm, 12 Aug 2024

In the rabbit-warren-like alleys of Tiao Tong, in the Zhongshan district of Taipei, Fei Qian Wu is easy to find – just look for the long queue of people waiting outside the grilled eel restaurant.

Inside, Fei Qian Wu – popular for more than 50 years – is packed to the gills with retired people, students and office workers wolfing down bento boxes of grilled eel with rice.

Tiao Tong was known as Little Tokyo during the Japanese occupation (1895-1945) of Taiwan and up until the 1980s, when Japan was at the height of its economic power. Family-run restaurants and izakayas can be found here, as can hostess bars – Japanese-style nightclubs that hire women to chat and flirt with customers.

Since the pandemic, and thanks to the release of Netflix’s 1980s Tiao Tong-set miniseries Light the Night, these places have been joined by trendy bars and restaurants that seat only a handful of people. With their advent, Tiao Tong’s reputation as Taipei’s red light district has faded somewhat.

The grilled eel with rice draws long queues of customers at Fei Qian Wu. Photo: Mavis Teo

Tiao Tong’s boundaries are hazy; Japanese visitors regard the part that extends into neighbouring Zhongzheng district as the safer, less sleazy end of Little Tokyo, according to Brady Chu, chief concierge at the Sheraton Zhongshan Hotel for the past 11 years.

Although it encompasses Linsen North Road and parts of Zhongshan North Road, Tiao Tong does not quite reach the Regent Taipei, the first luxury hotel of international standing to open in Taiwan, in 1990.