Meet the Bund is about to be confused with a hotel that is about to change its name. Chen Zhiping opened the restaurant in 2019. Fujianese cooking, its own coast. Fifty-sixth floor, West Tower, Raffles City The Bund, in Hongkou. Number 6 on Asia's 50 Best in 2026, the best in mainland China on that list. You are in the air. You are not in the old Cathay Hotel.
Pudong at night, across the Huangpu: the Oriental Pearl at the left, the Shanghai Tower at the right. The Peace Hotel is on the near bank, behind the camera. Meet the Bund looks back at this from a tower in Hongkou.
I took the picture from the Bund side. The Oriental Pearl, the Shanghai Tower, the bottle-opener between them, the river throwing the lights back. It is the picture the city uses when it wants you to come. The Peace Hotel is on the near bank, behind the camera, and that is the name that is moving. Fujianese, up in Hongkou, is its own coast. It is not a dressed-up way of saying Shanghainese, however nicely the skyline is doing its job.
The Cathay is the Peace Hotel, 20 Nanjing Road East. Victor Sassoon, 1929. Jinjiang has owned it since 1984. Fairmont has had the name since 2010. Accor and Jinjiang say it stays open through the works and debuts in 2027 as Raffles Peace Hotel Shanghai. Read the name on the confirmation. A trip next year may be booked as one and slept as the other, in the same art deco shell. The protected rooms are why you came. The logo is what is moving.
When I am finished with that skyline I stay at Capella, in Jian Ye Li, 480 West Jianguo Road. Fifty-five shikumen villas, first guests on 31 August 2017. Pierre Gagnaire has a Comptoir in the compound: French, in a lane, which has nothing to do with a Fujianese menu on the 56th floor, and that is a relief. The Bund is a taxi. Hongkou is another. Sleep at the Peace Hotel if you want to walk out and see Pudong. Eat at Meet the Bund if the list is why you flew. It is not in the lobby.
If I want an afternoon on the river and I am not eating, I go to the Power Station of Art, the old power station that has been hosting the biennale. A weekday, if you can get one. I would not try the 56th floor, the lane in Xuhui, and the museum as one heroic circuit. Pick the dinner. Let the rest arrange itself around that.
Practical notes
The Fairmont's own notes put Hongqiao at about 25 to 35 minutes and Pudong at about 45 to 60, before the evening traffic does what it does. Check which airport you are actually flying into. The hotel is open during the work. Ask which rooms are in it before you promise anyone the old corridor.
Design Shanghai and West Bund Art & Design are the weeks those rooms vanish. The Asian Grand Tour is why this city tends to close the route. The Banquet Guide to Hong Kong is the other harbour, and a different set of bookings.
