Mercato

Mercato, Shanghai: The Verdict

At the ¥¥¥ price point, Mercato earns its place as one of the more considered Italian options in Shanghai; and the address alone tells you something about its positioning. Sitting on the 36th floor of Three on the Bund in Huangpu, this is a room with a view that most restaurants in this city would use heavily as their main selling point. Mercato does not need to. For a first-timer deciding between Italian options in Shanghai, Mercato is a strong default choice at this tier.

The Room and What to Expect on Arrival

The first thing you register at Mercato is elevation; both literal and tonal. The 36th-floor setting means the room is filled with light during lunch service, after dark the view across the Huangpu River toward Pudong becomes the dominant visual. This is a grown-up dining room: not a casual trattoria, not a white-tablecloth formality exercise. The Italian format here is modern and social rather than ceremonial, which matters for how you should dress and how long you should plan to stay. For a first visit, arrive with time to settle in rather than treating it as a quick dinner stop.

Chef Kelvin Chai leads the kitchen. The cuisine type is Italian, which at this price tier in Shanghai means you are in a category where execution and sourcing are expected to do the heavy lifting. The Michelin Plate recognition, awarded by inspectors who are specifically assessing quality of cooking rather than ambiance or service polish, confirms the kitchen is meeting a credible standard. That distinction matters here because Mercato's address and view could easily carry a weaker operation; it has not needed to coast on either.

The Counter Experience at Mercato

One of the more practical decisions you will make when booking Mercato is where in the room you want to sit. The counter or bar seating option changes the experience in a specific way: it puts you closer to the kitchen's rhythm and gives the meal a more interactive, less formal register. For a solo diner or a pair who wants to watch the operation rather than face each other across a table, counter seating at Mercato is worth requesting. It is a different pace from the main dining room, more immediate, better for conversation with staff, a useful way to understand how the kitchen is organised.

If you are visiting for the first time and want to get a genuine read on what Mercato is doing well, counter seating is the more informative choice. The trade-off is that you lose some of the view, which from a window table at the 36th floor is genuinely worth having. That is a real decision: the view versus the kitchen proximity. For food-first diners, the counter wins. For occasion dining where the setting is part of what you are paying for, request a window table instead.

How Mercato Fits Into Shanghai's Italian Scene

Shanghai has a competitive Italian restaurant tier at ¥¥¥ and above, Mercato sits within a cluster of addresses that serious diners move between. 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana Shanghai is the higher-end reference point in the same city, Michelin-starred, higher price tier, more formal register. If budget is not the constraint and you want the most technically ambitious Italian meal in Shanghai, that is where you go instead. Mercato is the better call when you want the ¥¥¥ tier done properly without the full commitment of a starred tasting menu experience.

Within the Bund and broader Huangpu dining cluster, Arva and Scarpetta are the other Italian addresses worth comparing directly. Cellar to Table and Frasca offer different registers within the broader European dining category in this city. None of those alternatives hold the combination of Bund-facing elevation, consecutive Michelin recognition, the specific social-Italian format that Mercato has settled into. That combination is what you are paying for.

For context on how Mercato fits into Asia's Italian dining tier more broadly, 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana in Hong Kong and cenci in Kyoto represent the regional category at its upper end, both are useful reference points if you are calibrating what Michelin-level Italian looks like across different Asian cities.

Pearl Picks: More Dining in Shanghai and Beyond

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• Our full Shanghai hotels guide
• Our full Shanghai bars guide
• Our full Shanghai wineries guide
• Our full Shanghai experiences guide
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