Drinks and bars in Shanghai: start with the glass at the table

What visitors hear about first is the bars: rooftops, cocktails, the view across the river. That is one strand of the city, the youngest, with the narrowest clientele. Two others are older: huangjiu, rice wine, drunk warm with food; and beer, pale lager, served cold, one bottle each or one large bottle shared at a meal. Separate the three first.

Three things, not one

In Chinese, jiu covers rice wine, beer, spirits and grape wine, and menus do not divide them as Europe does, so asking what locals drink yields a list of nouns.

Huangjiu is the old wine of Jiangnan, rice-fermented, drunk warm, served with food, and the only one of the three that is genuinely local; it is also the one visitors miss. Beer is the everyday alcohol, pale lager with meals, appearing more often than any cocktail. Bars are the third layer, the youngest and most like any other international city: cocktails, rooftops, wine bars, craft taps. The layer is real, but its customers are one slice of the city; a week without entering one misses nothing essential.

Huangjiu: the genuinely local one

Huangjiu is fermented from rice, not distilled, and runs from amber to dark brown; a Jiangnan tradition, with Shaoxing the best-known producing region. It is stronger than table wine usually is, yet goes down sweet and soft, the weight arriving later. The local drink is stronger than it looks, and the legal drinking age applies.

It is served warm: the jug stood in hot water, poured into very small cups, a sip at a time, never in one go. Some places put ginger or a dried plum in the warming jug, a way of smoothing the drink rather than a ceremony, and nobody will explain it. Pouring for others is ordinary courtesy, pouring for yourself equally normal; the jug or bottle on the table is refilled by whoever empties it.

Its place is the table. It goes with the sweet-savoury braises of local cooking, with autumn crab, with cold dishes cured in rice wine; a meal runs two or three hours and the wine is one thing on it. As an aperitif, over ice, or expected to be as interesting as a cocktail, it disappoints: ice flattens the aroma, and its virtue appears only warm and beside food.

Ordering needs no names: ask for a jug, warmed, and choose between dry and sweet, older being fuller; start semi-dry, which sits best with food. Locals say huangjiu is nourishing. That is a saying, not a conclusion to rely on; treat it as alcohol.

Beer: one at the table, another in the glass

Everyday beer is pale lager, cold, weak and easy to drink through a meal: small bottles one to a person, a large one divided into glasses. Its job is to carry the food down and stretch a long dinner, not to be tasted. It is not special, but it is the everyday here, and the easiest thing to overlook.

Craft brewing is another matter. Small breweries and taprooms have appeared in recent years, making IPAs, wheat beers, sours and stouts, much of it good. The drinking differs: standing, several small glasses side by side, talk of hops and bitterness, prices at international-city levels. Do not ask one to be the other; judged as lager, craft beer is bitter and expensive, and judged the other way, the lager is nothing.

Ordering is simple: say beer at a table and a pale lager arrives; in a taproom, ask for a flight, then a full glass.

Six kinds of bar, sorted by what they are for

Not by reputation, but by what each does for you.

The hotel bar. Reliable, quiet, English-speaking, comfortable, the most expensive of the six. Its purpose is waiting for someone, business talk, one drink alone before bed; no scene, no surprise.

The rooftop bar. Mostly cocktails, and it sells the view; the next section deals with it.

The neighbourhood bar. Small, usually at street level, regulars from the surrounding blocks, a short list. Its purpose is one or two people talking, one drink enough. Outside the visitor areas this is the closest thing to the city’s own living room.

The craft taproom. Sells by the tap, lets you try first, mostly standing, volume moderate to loud, easy to talk to the next person. Its purpose is comparison and discovery.

The wine bar. By the glass, a few small plates, opening and closing early, customers mostly young local professionals. Shanghai has a real wine-drinking layer, often underrated. Its purpose is a glass before or after dinner.

The bar attached to a restaurant. The most practical: a drink while you wait for a table, another when you cannot face leaving. Its advantage is not moving again, and in this city that matters more than the list.

Telling them apart is easy: whether anyone behind the bar makes drinks, whether the list is handwritten or laminated, whether the guests are regulars or one table of visitors.

Rooftops: height is not a view

This is what most visitors are actually looking for, so it gets its own section.

Height is not the point; a tall building does not mean anything to look at. What decides it is the rest: the direction, facing the river and the skyline or the wall next door; what stands in front, since a high floor on a narrow street may look out on nothing but rooftop plant; whether it is open air, since behind glass the reflections eat half the picture, the same problem as an elevated platform; what sits between you and the view, a parapet, a planter, other people’s heads, since many rooftops can only be seen standing at the bar; and the air that night, because on a thick evening the view above is a band of grey.

The view is the product, priced into the drink: a minimum spend, a booking requirement, a time limit on the table, or one drink far above an ordinary bar. The test is simple: if the view is what you came for, treat the drink as the ticket; if not, do not have the second one here.

The easier substitute is the riverside at ground level: free, lights and reflections in front of you, and one level lower often a better picture than one level up. What a rooftop is worth paying for is sitting outside above the water, not height itself.

The clock, the way home, who should come, and three disappointments

Drinking here follows the meal: the alcohol is on the table, not at the bar, so the best drinking in Shanghai often happens during dinner.

Prepare for the timing. Bars close earlier than in most European cities, many finishing before what a European city would call late; places differ, so confirm on the day. The last metro runs earlier than most visitors assume, and after it only taxis and ride-hailing remain. That is the constraint that decides an evening: settle the way home, then the first drink.

Three arrangements work: drink inside dinner and take the metro; stay nearby, with the bar in walking distance; accept a taxi and put the rooftop early in the night.

To taste the local thing, order a jug of warm huangjiu and a bottle of local lager at dinner; to compare, take a flight in a taproom. What not to do: order baijiu as if it were wine and toast in full glasses, since it is far stronger and toasting pushes the volume up; order a cocktail where there is no list; buy a decorative jug from a visitor area as huangjiu worth carrying home; pour huangjiu over ice as an aperitif.

Who it suits: anyone willing to spend two hours over a meal; anyone who likes beer with food; anyone prepared to pay once for a view. Who should skip it: anyone wanting the bar night Berlin or London provides; anyone who does not drink, since the city’s tea is better, as the teahouses and coffee guide sets out; anyone determined to stay out past the last metro; families with children, since many bars do not welcome them and people still smoke indoors.

Three disappointments, said in advance.

The rooftop with the view blocked. The photograph was taken from one angle; the reality is a taller building opposite, a hoarding, or a skyline that exists only in reflection.

The craft bar with nothing on tap. A fridge and bottles, a list identical to any international city, at prices set for visitors.

The best glass is at the table. Many people spend an evening hunting bars and remember the jug of warm huangjiu and the cold lager that came with dinner.

So the order should be: eat first, then decide whether to go out. Drink in this city is part of the meal; get that right and the rest arranges itself.