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There’s no better way to understand how East meets East than by visiting Yongfu Elite, an 18-year-old club-restaurant in the heart of Shanghai’s former French Concession.
Tucked away down a winding road in the former residence of the British Consul General, Yongfu Elite became a favorite hangout spot for fashion insiders and the cultural elite in its early days.
The contemporary courtyard features a Chinese-style garden, a contemporary glass house, and a 1930s Spanish-style house. One is teleported to a scene in an Eileen Chang novel or perhaps to a Wang Kar-wai film set.
The historic site has been featured in glossy magazines and served as the backdrop for the 2008 Pirelli calendar.
Yongfu Elite is the 69-year-old son of Shanghai native Zhengzheng Wang, who found success as one of the country’s first menswear designers in the 80s. His brand Sha-er-wei, later Jun Long, became one of the first Chinese brands to enter department stores. By the 90s, it had more than 30 doors across the country.
But while he may have been sensational as a fashion personality, Wang fell out of love with fashion in the ’90s, abruptly shutting down his brand and turning his sights on the restaurant business. Yongfoo Elite was his third venture and became his life’s work.
During Shanghai’s two-month Covid-19 lockdown, Wang continued to renovate the space, adding ancient stone decorations and tearing down walls halfway through.
He also launched a new fine dining venture at Yongfu Elite, perhaps on demand, to explore the newfound interest in fusion cuisine.
To spearhead this new experiment, Wang hired Noma-trained Chinese chef Chang Liu, who has created a menu that includes dishes like Shanghai-style oil tarts with caviar and wagyu beef with Shanghai greens, topped off with soy ice cream.
Wang likened his new project to the study of Chinese and Western cultures.
Shanghai has always been known for its petty bourgeois sensibility – the key word being petty. It didn’t get a chance to grow,” says Wang. “After the arrival of New China, ‘haipay’ blossomed into what we call Shanghai style. It embraces everything foreign and new, and then transposes it into something more culturally domestic.
Wang describes consumers’ new draw toward an “aesthetically-driven” dining experience, “and to be honest, Chinese food is declining in that respect.”
“I’ve partaken at a round table, often cooked over an open flame, Chinese food may be said to be less civilized, but there is a certain worldly appeal. Chinese cooking usually goes for a large feast. At the intellectual level, it remains true to the family-oriented consciousness.
Having won a Michelin star for his Chinese restaurant serving Shanghainese cuisine, Wang recently went on to tackle the two equally popular recipes at Yongfu Elite. “In practice, we talk a lot about the ‘techniques’ of Chinese cooking, but rarely about the ‘art’ of food,” Wang added. But Western cuisine has become a feast for the five senses, for individual pleasure.
Although his friend, the famous author Jin Yucheng Wang, urges him to start writing a biography, he chooses to spend most of his time working on Yongfu Elite.
A major change was the expansion of Caixiang Study’s private lounge area into a “quiet” bar. A study would normally be an open space to peer into a creator’s mind, but here one can get a glimpse of Wang’s interior design process. Incorporating his favorite fashion design techniques such as collage or collage, Wang dressed bar tables in old Italian textiles, overhead lamps in intricately shaped metal casings, and exposed several walls to reveal layers of colorful decay. He removed the Ming-dynasty monastic bed, but kept a collection of 60s Gucci sofas, with plans to add more vintage furniture to spice up the space.
Mao
It’s all meant to be messy. “I like to design a space like I do clothes – there can be seven or eight different aesthetic things, but I break their boundaries,” says Wang.
He calls Yongfu Elite a “cross-pollination” of different styles, much like the open mic events he likes to host, where performance artists, folk musicians and poets come and improvise at will. But at the core of his work there is an invocation of Eastern naturalistic principles. In Shanghai’s booming social media-driven cafes and bistros, Wang is undermining the idea of ”it’s right,” leaving room for unplanned tranquility.
Pointing to an exposed column in the center of the living room, Wang said it was designed with manual assistants, which meant stopping the workers halfway because he liked exposed architectural surfaces.
Wang said the design is “a lifestyle configuration rather than a multi-faceted design concept.” He dislikes being called a businessman and avoids business rules. Rather, he is free to do his own thing.
“This is something that people with a lot of money don’t and won’t build. “It’s about reflecting my personal reality instead of chasing the external,” he says.
Wang said a place like Yongfoo Elite could no longer happen, and the government agreed to keep it as a cultural institution after his retirement. “It started as a crazy idea, but when the idea came up, I gave it up all the way.”
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