All hail Liquid Laundry, that new spot by Kelley Lee capturing the hearts and appetites of Shanghai’s slick set. It’s got buzz. If it were a tumblr, it’d be trending. If it were a house, it’d be on fire. You may be getting to know the elevator of this building – also leading up to Spicy Joint and Element Fresh – very well in the coming months.
We should know too, having made no less than five visits in two weeks, friend after friend intent on finding out what everyone’s talking about. We have eaten our way through the menu’s length – weighing our arteries with pig face and pizza, silky duck rilletes (RMB68) and indulgent duck nuggets (RMB68).
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Firmly entrenched in the realm of gastropub fare, Lee – of Boxing Cat Brewery, Cantina Agave and Sproutworks – is working alongside her main comfort-food man Sean Jorgenson (also at Boxing Cat, formerly of places like Maya and Avalon) to infuse substance into this stylish locale.
Everything is relentlessly homemade. Those face bacon sandwiches (RMB68)? They’re a lot of work. Buns baked in-house are soft and yielding, packed with thin slices of meat landing somewhere between the texture of chewy jerky and chicharons. These strips have been aged and dried, boiled and tenderized over the span of days. The sandwiches arrive topped with kicky slaw and a little pop of dill. They are highly addictive. Oh, and they’re called the Hannibal Lecter Special – cue the drums.
We gravitate towards smaller bites and sharing plates, which go famously with creative cocktails from the bar (RMB75-80) like a smoky old fashioned. Or with one of the homebrews (RMB40), percolating in striking stainless steel fermentation tanks (Boxing Cat Brewer Michael Jordan has created some beers exclusively for this venue). Rotisserie chickens (RMB128/half, RMB218/whole), rotating in the open kitchen, while juicy, were over-salted on both occasions we dug in.
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There are also pizzas with Napoli-thin crusts from an eye-catching, custom-made copper oven. Topped with luscious items like pepperoni (RMB98) or (our personal favorite) chorizo and a fried egg (RMB118), the crusts are nicely blistered but nothing to write home about. Bone marrow tarts (RMB78), however, are. Served four to a stainless steel pan, unctuous insides spill from a crisp shell, perked up with a tomato sauce harboring barbecue undertones.
At the moment, Liquid Laundry feels electric, full of boisterous revelers engaged every night in a constant dance of recognition. Bodies bounce around the room like atoms, swooping in for guerilla cheek kisses before inertia drives them onward. The huge, polished space – all exposed pipes, concrete walls and tongue-in-cheek signage (“your clothes look better on my bedroom floor”) – can fit 200 at any given time. If the buzz dies down, we can imagine it being difficult to keep this space full and rowdy.
With their prime locale and celebration of things fatty and boozy, Liquid Laundry will remain likeable. They’ll just have to work at keeping fresh.
Photos by Rachel Gouk
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