News 'n' New Restaurants
First up is Stefan Stiller’s new concept: Tai’an Table. Operating from an undisclosed location (on Tai’an Lu, we’d hazard a guess?), the concept is a private restaurant of 20 seats helmed by Stiller himself, with a seasonal monthly menu.
Armed with fresh triumph from her recently opened Mexican restaurant, Tepito, rumor is that Kelley Lee will unveil a brand new restaurant in Xintiandi next to Paulaner, due to open in late summer. She’s keeping mum on the details, but if her former concepts are anything to go by it’ll be popular.
No longer the preserve of dim, candlelit dinners, Franck Bistro is braving the harsh light of day to debut a new weekly lunch and weekend brunch. The lunch offers a new, two/three-course prix fixe menu, while the 'festive brunch' consists of classic brunch items and a selection of the restaurant's favorite dishes, along with a selection of shared appetizers and housemade desserts to finish.
Looks like Jing’an is about to get a little healthier. Hunter Gatherer has announced plans to open a third branch of their popular whole food eatery and shop on Yanping Lu, set to open in late May.
Also new in Jing'an is Bites & Brews, a café and bar serving sandwiches, bagels and salads along with a decent selection of craft beers, coffee and juices. Prices are pretty low (for the area), think coffee from RMB15, sanwiches from RMB25, salad from RMB28 and 'savory éclairs' from RMB10.
A new steakhouse called Raw Eatery and Grill has set up shop near the Xinzha Lu intersection. Presided over by Venezuelan chef Juan Campos, on the menu are affordable steaks from Chile and Argentina, grilled on the restaurant’s Josper charcoal grill.
Over at the PuLi Hotel, a new French eatery, Phénix takes over as the hotel's flagship Western restaurant. With Aussie head chef Michael Wilson at the stove, the MO is more affordable bistro-style eats with a twist. The hotel's legendary weekend brunch is still on the cards, too. 
A new vegetarian restaurant has opened in Changning, called Frankie's Kitchen. Owned by the same peeps as fellow meat-free eatery Wu Guan Tang next door, the place serves Chinese dishes and eschews 'fake meat' in favor of tofu, vegetables, noodles, steamed buns, rice balls and even hot pot.
Booze News
The Camel Group has unveiled a new beer bar on Yongkang Lu called The Hop Project. Laoban Todd Pearson tells us the bar will play host to a roster of different ‘beer pop-ups,’ the first of which will focus on locally brewed craft beers. They’re also serving grilled cheese sandwiches from Co. Cheese Melt Bar to line your stomach. 
The guys behind Flask have opened the doors to their new bar on Xiangyang Bei Lu: Botanist. The place features fully retractable doors that take you to an outdoor terrace. Pretty much the opposite of a speakeasy, really. On the menu are various herbal concoctions, and even a drink served inside a frozen tomato. Talk about getting your five-a-day.
Over on Donghu Lu, a new bar from the Funka group has opened: The Parrot. With a menu of reasonably priced cocktails and food plus regular live DJ sets (well, as live as a DJ set can get), this bar is the place Donghu Lu has been waiting for. Read a review of that here.
Just a few doors down, Elevator, a new club in the old Lune spot, has also opened. What's a casual bar
with ping pong tables and board games during the week transforms into a late night club on weekend, with fully soundproofed windows and what management describes as a "building shaking" sound system. Read our review right here. 
The city’s jazz fans were reeling from news that the iconic JZ Club, one of Shanghai’s best and longest-running live music venues, will close its doors on May 15. Management has announced plans to reopen in the future, but has yet to confirm where the new club will be. Keep your fingers crossed that they can recreate the magic that regularly graced the Fuxing Lu location.
Where one shuts, another opens. Fellow jazz bar, Heyday, is set to open a second location, following the rampant success of the first at the corner of Tai’an and Xingguo Lu.
Last but certainly not least, those crazy BYFO (Burn Your Face Off Hot Sauce) kids are cooking up a storm over at Logan's Punch, from now until the foreseeable future. On the menu is a roster of diet crushing eats from RMB35-65, including deep-fried bacon (yes, really) cream cheese jalapeño poppers, double cheese-stuffed quesadillas, juicy pulled pork, chicken or lamb burgers. Oh, and caviar topped devilled eggs. 
Feel free to email us any tips, gossip and rumours vicious or otherwise to dining@urbanatomy.com.
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