Mandarin Oriental Pudong, Shanghai is located in the heart of the Lujiazui Central Financial District. The property will form part of ‘Harbour City’ a 25 hectare mixed use development, comprising office towers, a residential complex, significant retail and extensive landscaped gardens that will transform the neighbourhood. The development is within walking distance of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the regional headquarters of major domestic and international financial institutions, and has direct access to the promenade on the banks of the Huangpu River.
The hotel will feature 362 guestrooms and 210 serviced apartments. All accommodation will be spacious and elegantly styled, with outstanding views of the city skyline and the Huangpu River. Subtle design touches will reflect the Group’s oriental heritage, while Mandarin Oriental’s renowned customer-centric and highly sophisticated in-room entertainment systems will be a prominent feature. Guests will also have access to an exclusive executive club lounge.
Guests will enjoy an array of innovative dining opportunities, with a choice of three eclectic restaurants, a lobby lounge and bar, and a Mandarin Oriental Cake Shop. For the local community, an extensive range of stylish banqueting venues, including a grand ballroom, will provide the perfect backdrop for celebrations, while a wide variety of well-equipped meeting rooms will appeal to the business community.
The hotel is ideally placed for leisure guests with direct access to extensive gardens that will change the local landscape. An all-encompassing Spa at Mandarin Oriental, will provide holistic rejuvenation and relaxation in a serene, meditative setting. There will also be 25 metre indoor swimming pool and a fully comprehensive fitness centre.
Designed by world-renowned architect, Bernardo Fort-Brescia of Arquitectonica, Mandarin Oriental Pudong, Shanghai will be an urban oasis in the heart of the city.
The project owner is Shanghai Rui Ming Real Estate Company; a joint venture between the Hong Kong listed CITIC Pacific Limited and the PRC state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC).
“We are delighted to be bringing Mandarin Oriental’s renowned levels of hospitality to Shanghai – China’s vibrant commercial and financial centre,” said Edouard Ettedgui, Group Chief Executive of Mandarin Oriental. “This development, in the prominent new district of Lujiazui, presents an ideal opportunity to further establish our luxury brand in the mainland.”
“We look forward to working with Mandarin Oriental on creating a luxurious and elegant hotel which will become the landmark of the overall Harbour City development,” said Mr. Wang Ande, Director and General Manager of Shanghai Rui Ming Real Estate Company. “The reputation of Mandarin Oriental as an award-winning international brand, renowned for its exemplary service and attention to detail, makes it an ideal partner for this exciting project.The hotel will provide exceptional services to support the numerous financial headquarters in the Lujiazui area.”
Mandarin Oriental Pudong, Shanghai is approximately 40 minutes from Hongqiao International airport and 50 minutes from Pudong International airport. It is ideally located to enjoy the myriad of attractions that Shanghai, China’s largest and wealthiest city, has to offer.
Resto Tip:
Chef Paul Pairet, of Mr & Mrs Bund and previously Jade on 36, has stated month after month that his revolutionary 10-seat multi-sensory experience restaurant Ultraviolet would be ‘opening soon’. He claimed it would evoke a ‘bold and exclusive dining experience that engages all the senses to create the ultimate luxury: Emotion’. But after months of delay accompanied by extravagant descriptions of this supposedly ground-breaking concept restaurant, the bar was set stratospherically high. Could anything live up to the hype?
At the end of April, we got an exclusive preview of Ultraviolet, a sort of dress rehearsal for the final draft of the restaurant which has finally rolled out in May. And after this, admittedly invited, tasting, we can say definitively that yes, Ultraviolet is radical and it was very much worth the wait.
Ultraviolet is located in a secret location in an old Shanghai neighbourhood. After being driven to the restaurant by their private driver, you enter a set of inconspicuous double doors and cross into Pairet’s fantasy restaurant: a mixture of James Bond lair and mad scientist laboratory. Mesh metal doors slide open without any visible human attendants. Your chilled drink awaits on a bar counter of raw wood. After a few sips, another door slides open, beckoning you down a hallway lit by a Baccarat crystal chandelier. Then, a final set of doors slides open. You can’t help but laugh as the 2001: A Space Odyssey opening chords play while you step into the all-white dining room: a plain rectangular table flanked by 10 white adjustable chairs. The dining experience begins.
Each course is paired with 360 degree video projections, surround sound music (a different song tailored to each course) and even custom scents: sometimes they waft from a pressure cooker which is hand carried around the room, sometimes from a scent machine installed in the ceiling and with one course, the scent of cigar smoke captured in a glass dome is held up to your nose by a waiter.
The full dinner includes 20 ‘avant garde’ courses with names such as ‘Foie gras can’t quit’, which is an extraordinary edible ‘cigarette’ of foie gras wrapped in a shining fruit-flavoured ‘skin’ and presented in a shining silver ashtray. You dip it in ‘cabbage ash’ while a projection of cigarette ash wheels around you on screen.
For other courses, many of which are paired with drinks ranging from dessert wine to peppermint tea, projections include crashing ocean waves, ancient trees in fog or Indonesian masks. A ‘micro fish and ship’ course is actually a single giant caper berry deep fried in batter and paired with anchovy tartar sauce. The food is central to the night, never just a prop; each meticulously crafted bite is so delectable, we’re left craving more after nearly every course.
Realising this state-of-the-art project took years, in part because of the complexity of the audiovisual components. The ten-person dining room alone was rebuilt four times by three different crews before they got all the systems working properly.
Thanks in part to sponsorship of around 30 per cent of the restaurant’s equipment, Pairet and team have amassed an astonishing 4,500 pieces of tableware from designer brands like Raynaud, Legle, Zwiesel Kristallglas and Studio William. After dinner, guests get a tour of the kitchen, which is almost comically larger than the dining room and outfitted with boggling high-tech wizardry from sponsoring brands including Molteni, Electrolux-Professional, Miele and Kohler.
The price tag for an evening at Ultraviolet? 2,000RMB. What kind of bargain is that? Ultraviolet not only claim to have one of the highest ratios of investment-to-customers in the restaurant world but, with 25 chefs and waiters working to serve and entertain just ten diners, they say they’d need to charge 5,000RMB/guest just to break even. So grab your ‘bargain’ reservation now, it’s your ticket to the outer realms of dining.
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