Where to actually eat: streets, not restaurants

Lists of restaurants go stale in eighteen months in Shanghai. A method does not. This is how to find good eating anywhere in the city, including districts nobody has written about.

The core idea: Shanghai food culture is organised around streets and markets rather than individual destination restaurants. Find the right street and everything on it is worth trying.

The four signals

One: a queue of people who look like they work nearby, especially before noon. Two: a very short menu. A place doing six things well beats one doing sixty adequately. Three: turnover so high that ingredients cannot sit. Four: visible preparation — dumplings folded in the window, noodles pulled at the door.

Counter-signals: laminated menus in eight languages, staff standing outside inviting you in, and photographs of the food at life size in the window.

Use Dianping correctly

Sort by rating but read reviews from Chinese users, especially the ones with photographs of actual dishes rather than the restaurant front.

Ignore places rated above 4.8 with few reviews. In Shanghai, 4.3–4.6 with hundreds of reviews is a far better signal.

Eat near the thing you are doing

Every museum, park and office district has a food ecosystem within 400 metres that exists for workers rather than visitors. Choose those streets.

The distance-to-tourist-sight ratio is the single best predictor of both price and quality in this city.

Market streets and malls

Old wet-market streets give you the morning version of local eating. Shopping-mall basement food halls give you air conditioning, prices and safety — and surprisingly good regional food.

The mall basement deserves more respect than it gets. Some of the best-value eating in Shanghai is on level B1.

Timing

Eat lunch at 11:30 or 13:30 rather than 12:30. Eat dinner at 18:00 rather than 19:30. You will get a table and better food because the kitchen is less stretched.

If a popular restaurant has no queue at 19:00 on a Saturday, ask yourself why.