el Willy is located on the 5th floor of No. 22 The Bund. Speaking of which, No. 22 The Bund is quite a magical place—just a little past Jinling East Road. The entire building houses shops, restaurants, and bars, and it’s much bigger inside than you’d expect. Although the surroundings are quite old, there are still some very good restaurants here.

Although this restaurant’s group-buy deal claims to be half price, each dish in the set is actually for two people, and the listed original price is usually calculated for double the portion… so there’s really no difference. Moreover, some dishes aren’t even on the regular menu—they seem to have been created specifically for the group-buy deal~~~ which feels like a bit of a rip-off. The photos below are all from the group-buy set; in reality, the portions aren’t this mini~~

Iberian Cured Meat Platter with Fresh Tomato Sauce and Bread: includes ham, cured loin, salami, and chorizo. The quality is fine, but unfortunately, the most delicious ham only comes in two tiny slices~~~

Smoked Salmon with Sour Cream—tastes pretty good.

Fried Seafood Croquettes with Spicy Mayonnaise: I’ve heard this is quite authentic, but personally I didn’t care for the flavor—it felt a bit too greasy.

Sautéed Prawns in Garlic Chili Olive Oil

Crispy Suckling Pig with Flavored Mango: this is really good, but quite indulgent—one piece is enough.

Garden Salad with Spring Roasted Vegetables, Citrus, and Smoked Salmon: nothing special, neither good nor bad.

Char-grilled Latin-style Argentine Beef with Onions, Roasted Baby Potatoes, and South American Herb Sauce: although the beef was served medium-rare, it was still tough, indicating the meat quality wasn’t great.

Juicy Roast Chicken Risotto: this seems to have been made specifically for the group-buy deal. It’s clearly an Italian risotto, so why is it appearing in a Spanish restaurant?… Honestly, the taste isn’t bad, but the group-buy lists the original price as 255 RMB—are you kidding me?…

Selected Dessert Platter: also seemingly prepared exclusively for the group-buy deal. It basically includes ice cream, chocolate, gummy candies, brownies, and cheesecake. Only the ice cream was decent; everything else was terrible.

We also ordered two more glasses of CAVA.

The ambiance is actually quite nice, after all, right outside the window is the Huangpu River:

Overall, this restaurant maintains a relatively high standard across the board, yet falls just short in every aspect. For instance, the environment: despite the beautiful view outside the window, the tables are packed tightly together, making it quite noisy inside. As for service, there aren’t any glaring issues, but it’s clearly not exceptional either—we occasionally couldn’t even find a waiter. The food is similar: everything is reasonably well-prepared, but nothing truly wows you. Add to that the rice and desserts from the group-buy set, and points definitely need to be deducted.

After dinner, we went for a walk along The Bund. It was snowing heavily outside, and although by the next morning it looked as if it had never snowed at all, at the time it really felt like a massive snowfall…

Rooftop325 is located on the 5th floor of the Shanghai Art Museum. It used to be called Kathleen’s 5, but presumably after Kathleen’s Waitan opened, they renamed this one Rooftop325 to distinguish between the two. Only the name changed—the interior, ambiance, and menu remain exactly the same. Nowadays, the Shanghai Art Museum is completely empty, and the downstairs area smells of cigarette smoke from the security guards hanging out there. Visiting at night can feel a bit eerie. The restaurant itself is essentially a large glasshouse, offering views of the falling snow outside, as well as panoramic vistas of People’s Square and Raffles City~~~ The only downside is that the air conditioning isn’t powerful enough—but that’s unavoidable, since a big glass structure loses heat incredibly quickly~~~

Their signature cocktails are named after several landmarks around People’s Square, and they’re really well-made~~

Photos in this post taken with SONY NEX-5R + 35mm f1.8, post-processed in Lightroom.

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Bar, Spanish Food