In the South Beauty clan, this is the sibling that got all the looks. The wacky fusion of old colonial house and avant design is remarkably successful, as walls packed with old-fashioned gray tiles sit alongside post-modern murals of smashed-up furniture glued together into artistic collages. The best seats in the house, if there are two of you, sits in an intimate alcove overlooking the red-lit bar and gives you a great vantage point to survey one of the best-looking design jobs ever bestowed on a Shanghai restaurant. As with the other South Beauties, the menu offers a creative array of refined Sichuan cuisine, which is cleaner and better presented, if not necessarily any more tasty, than the fare at your local chuan cai joint. Happily, refinement does not mean much letting up on the spice – kou shui ji was fiery but not too oily, and spicy shredded duck with ginger and pepper packed a real punch. Special tofu ‘made before your eyes’ was a disappointing novelty, though, with the runny tofu and its four different toppings conflating into uninviting slop. The segregation of smokers and non-smokers into separate buildings offers a welcome escape for the clean-lunged; and we’re all in favor of the 10 percent service charge as long as the service is commensurately good (on this occasion it seemed too haphazard to merit the surcharge). This restaurant certainly has the trappings of greatness; with a little sharpening of the service and a few more flavors in the kitchen, it could get there.

More restaurants in French Concession Shanghai