Tailor (Closed)

Address: 2 Huashan Lu, (opposite Jing'An temple), Shanghai, China
Tel: +86 183 0197 7360
Website: view Tailor (Closed)’s website
Door: Open door
Style: Speakeasy

Review

Fumbling around the streets looking for your destination is a key part of any night out in Shanghai, but for pure discretion Tailor takes the biscuit. Bang opposite Jing'An Temple, on the corner of Huashan Lu and Yuyuan Lu, is a Chinese pharmacy. Next door to the pharmacy is a stainless steel unmarked lift. That lift brings you directly up to Tailor on the third floor.

Owned by Eddy Yang, who returned to his native China four years ago after working at Detroit in London's Covent Garden, this small, triangular space benefits from a quintessentially Shanghai location: opposite a gigantic gilded temple with a shopping mall underneath it. One thing it doesn't have? A menu. All the drinks are - geddit?! - tailor-made.

Staff here didn't solve my thirst for a baijiu cocktail - like most bartenders in China, they consider the stuff unmixable - and they were out of Cynar. But recommendations hit the spot, and they weren't afraid to recommend pure classics. Payment is cash or UnionPay,