Shanghai's time-honoured shops: what is worth buying, and what is not

老字号 (laozihao) is the most misread phrase in Shanghai shopping. It is a formal status, awarded by the responsible authorities and listed in a register, but what it recognises is age, continuity and continuing trade — not whether what a shop sells today is any good. One signboard hides three realities: a shop still making its own goods at a fair price; a shop living on its name, quality slipping, prices rising; a brand in a group’s portfolio. No businesses are named here: ownership and stock change fast, and any list goes stale. What follows is what the status means, and what a few minutes in a shop can tell you.

What the status is: a recognition of age, not a guarantee of quality

The label covers food, confectionery and snacks, restaurants, Chinese medicine, cloth and clothing, spectacles and watches, and stationery and ink — all with names hung there for decades. What they share is that the name itself became an asset. The risk lies in that same fact: the status describes the past, and what you buy was made today. A name survives for decades because the work stayed good, or because generations feel attached to it, the site is good, or coach groups come; from outside, those look alike.

One layer in: a time-honoured name does not mean the original family is still making anything. The name may be group-held, franchised, or licensed out. How much craft survived can only be judged at the counter. So the category holds shops that are genuinely excellent, shops that are only a pleasant name, and shops that are ordinary brands.

By function: the kinds of shop it actually covers

One status covers several businesses; separating them by function tells you what to expect.

• Food shops (cured meats, cooked foods, mooncakes, pastries, sauces, wine-and-brine preserves). The most worthwhile category: everyday food sold by weight, seasonal mooncakes, pastries and sauces. They live on repeat purchases by local households, and usually have a workroom behind.
• Confectionery and snack shops. Sweets, preserved fruit, roasted seeds and nuts, boxed pastries. Easiest to carry and give away, easiest to overpay for: the same specification is often cheaper in a supermarket or online.
• Restaurants. Some have cooked the same dishes for decades and are recognised locally; others have simplified the menu, raised prices and filled the room with groups.
• The traditional pharmacy. A working pharmacy: prescriptions, compounding, patent medicines and tonics, with patients queuing. It is not there to be visited, and herbs and tonics are not souvenirs to buy casually.
• Cloth and clothing, spectacles and watches, stationery and ink. Cloth is sold by the metre, with tailoring too, and the test is the one that applies to silk: read the fibre-content label. Spectacles and watch shops solve concrete problems such as a lens or a repair. Stationery is the lightest and most keepable.

How to tell a shop that is still working from one living on its name

A few concrete things are enough.

• Look at who is queuing, and make it a weekday. On an ordinary weekday, a queue of local households with bags, buying the same few things, is a good sign; a coach at the door, or a queue walked in by a guide, is not. A weekend queue proves nothing — everyone is out that day.
• Look at whether it makes its own goods or resells. Goods sold by weight, made the same day, cut or packed in front of you mean a workshop; shelves of sealed packs made elsewhere mean the name is for sale, not the craft.
• Look at whether the price is on the goods. A working shop puts tickets on the goods or the scale, quotes a unit price by weight and issues invoices; a shop coasting on its name often has no tickets, and the price depends on how you look.
• Look for two counters: loose and gift. Local customers buy loose, by weight; the gift counter faces presents and visitors. The same product at two counters can carry two prices, the difference being the box and bag.
• Look for the second, smaller counter inside the door. Many shops put the conspicuous gift boxes at the entrance, while the real loose or hot-food counter is further back, with local people at it.

What is worth buying: it travels, it keeps, and it is hard to buy well elsewhere

What is worth buying has one thing in common: it was made for daily use, not for giving.

• Sauces and seasonings. Sealed, long-keeping and cheap, the most reliable buy; the ones local kitchens actually use are hard to match elsewhere.
• Cured meats, wine-and-brine and preserved goods. They keep, the flavours are local, and sealed packs travel; this is where “hard to buy well elsewhere” holds firm.
• Pastries and sweets. The ambient, sealed kinds travel; freshly made ones lasting a few days are not worth buying unless you leave the next day.
• Stationery and ink, and cloth by the metre. Light, small and keepable; for cloth, insist on a stated fibre content and an invoice.

One honest point: much of this is ordinary food. A jar of sauce or a pack of preserved goods will not change your impression of Shanghai; its job is to add a flavour to a home kitchen. As with tea and silk, the best value is usually the plainest pack, and the simply packed version is often exactly what went into the box; the tests in the tea and silk guide apply here too.

What is not worth it

• The gift box. The same product at several times the loose price, the box and bag being the difference. If it is a present, buy loose and pack it yourself.
• The branch on a visitor street. These carry none of the fresh or made-on-site lines, only sealed gift stock and souvenirs, at a higher price. A branch is not the shop: the name is genuine, the goods are allocated.
• A name licensed onto unrelated goods. When the name turns up on drinks, cosmetics or health products, it has usually been licensed out. The test is direct: does this product relate to what the shop trades in? If not, treat it as an ordinary purchase.
• The pharmacy visited as a sight. It is open for business, with patients queuing; buying its tonics as a souvenir is a different matter.
• Anything bought because a guidebook said so. A guide can tell you a shop was once good; it cannot tell you how long today’s queue is or when the goods were made. The queue and the counter are the only live information, and a long queue may just mean slow production.

Packaging, customs, and whether to make a special trip

What travels is decided by the packaging: choose factory-sealed packs carrying an ingredient list and a production date, not goods packed at the counter in a plastic bag, which last a day or two. Cooked food and fresh pastries are the worst travellers — a few hours in a bag with no refrigeration; buying cooked food to eat that day is normal, carrying it for hours is not.

Whether you may carry any of it into your destination country is decided by that country’s customs and agriculture authorities, and the rules differ and change; no quantities or limits are given here. The categories to check are animal and plant material: meat and meat products, eggs and dairy, snacks containing meat or egg, fruit, seeds, unpackaged food, and Chinese medicines and patent remedies; some countries prohibit meat products outright, and herbs may be treated as medicines. Check those rules before you travel, keep the original packaging and ingredient list, and declare what must be declared.

On whether to make a special trip: the loose counter of a food shop is worth twenty minutes if you are already nearby — on Nanjing Road, in the old city, or in a department-store food hall — but not worth crossing the city for. A time-honoured restaurant is worth a meal only if you want that branch of local Shanghai cooking and accept a queue. The pharmacy, optician and stationer are not sights.

The honest closing: ask how much of what you bought comes from the signboard, and how much from today’s goods. The signboard is real: it stands for a piece of the city’s commercial history, and the old building, the old counter and the selling by weight are worth a look, and cost nothing. The product, though, is made by people today who may have no connection to the original family or recipe. If you go for the food, judge the food; if you go for the name, you are buying a story — fine, as long as you know that is what it is.