Triumphal Arch

Shanghai’s bankers have their favorite bars, so does the city’s media corps. Now architects, designers and other style aficionados, both local and expatriate, have hit upon their rendezvous of choice at Arch, tel: (86-21) 6466 0807. It’s described as a designer’s designer bar and caf, and since opening its fashionable doors last August has lured plenty of custom with its understated elegance, sharp cocktails and program of hip events.

Its location, in the chic Normandie Apartments Building, is a sequestered gem. The block is Shanghai’s only “flatiron” edifice, erected in 1924 on a thoroughfare through the leafy old French Concession, and has now been designated by the authorities as a preserved building. Arch is nestled on the ground floor and forms a swanky hideaway that is the antithesis of the spit-and-sawdust watering holes on down and dirty Maoming Lu or the contrived, yuppie hangouts of Xintiandi.

The tasteful interior, created by Yale-educated Taiwan architect and proprietor Leslie Chen, is an eye-pleasing mix of sharp lines and warm velvet. Chen herself is a fixture most afternoons and evenings: you’ll find her perched on the same barstool and invariably tapping away at a laptop, perhaps creating a new menu, or organizing another poetry jam, cheap Belgian-beer night, free movie screening in the basement cinema or appearances by guest speakers in the fields of design, interiors, graphics and publishing.

Ask at the bar for event details, flip through its extensive library of Wallpaper, Frame and Surface magazines or chow down on its range of fresh, healthy salads and simple pasta dishes. If you’re in the business of aesthetics and Shanghai-bound, you’ve just found your hangout.