48 Hours in Shanghai: The Essential Travel Itinerary
Where to eat, where to drink, and the speakeasies worth finding in Shanghai
For my Asia lovers, you haven’t even scratched the surface of what Shanghai is yet. It’s maddening, it’s breathtaking, and it refuses to be just one city.
You’ll spend a morning in what could pass for 1930’s Paris – there are plane trees, cobblestones, an old man probably walking his bird, people eating croissants in cafes. And then suddenly, you turn a corner, and you’re faced with towering skyscrapers that are classic Asia.
You enter a bar through a phone booth. Google Maps doesn't work. Your credit card doesn't work. Almost nobody speaks English. Cash is literally archaic.
You may also like
If Tokyo intimidated you, Shanghai will eat you alive. And I mean that with love!
It’s daunting, it’s messy, it’s annoying, but it’s also one of the best, most underrated cities to visit. Forty-eight hours isn't enough, of course. It never is. But it's enough to drink very well, eat better, and walk a lot of the best streets in Asia.
How to Spend 48 Hours in Shanghai
Where to Stay
Pick the neighborhood first; the hotel matters less. I'd stay in the Former French Concession every single time — Xuhui and Luwan technically, though nobody calls them that — because it's the walkable, leafy, beautiful part of the city, all Art Deco villas, independent cafés, and the best bars in Shanghai. Twelve at Hengshan — designed by Italian architect Mario Botta, wrapped in terracotta brick, hiding an elliptical courtyard behind its facade — is my pick. It sits right on Hengshan Road and puts you three minutes from everywhere worth being.
If you want something more polished and central, The Langham, Xintiandi in the restored shikumen lane-house district is the play. French Concession for wandering. Xintiandi for efficiency. So your pick!
Day One
Morning: Coffee and the French Concession
Start at Captain George Coffee & Roastery — Shanghai's specialty coffee scene is one of the most serious in Asia, and this one is definitely worth the detour. Founder Peng Jinyang won the 2025 World Brewers Cup championship, and his barista team has dominated the Chinese national Brewers Cup for five straight years. So, yeah, you definitely want to start here.
Grab a pour-over and a pastry, then spend the next two hours just walking. The French Concession is best consumed on foot.
Aim vaguely in the direction of Wukang Road, where the 1924 Normandie-style Wukang Mansion sits at the prow of a six-road intersection — one of Shanghai's most photographed buildings, and for good reason. From there, meander east along Anfu Lu and Fuxing Lu. Here, you’ll find independent boutiques, florists, bakeries, art galleries.
Make a stop at To Summer — the Chinese fragrance house that has become one of the most beautiful retail spaces in the country — and at Songmont, the homegrown leather goods label with a flagship that feels more like a gallery than a shop.
Lunch: Grab some Yunnanese Cuisine
Lost Heaven on Gaoyou Road, for Yunnanese food — the cooking of China's mountainous southwest, smoky and herby and fiery and full of ingredients you won't find anywhere else in the country. The space is dim, moody, incense-laced, done up like a tribal temple. Order the Burmese chicken curry, the tea-leaf salad, and anything with black rice. Trust me, you will leave planning your next meal here.
Afternoon: Tianzifang, then Yu Garden
Cab to Tianzifang, a warren of 1930s lane houses now converted into shops and studios. Yes, it's touristy, but I’d say go anyway. The architecture is ordinary, and if you wander a little away from the main lanes, you’ll come across some actual art studios and less tourist-y tea houses. I think give this place an hour, max.
From Tianzifang, head east to Yu Garden (Yuyuan). The 16th-century classical Chinese garden itself is worth the ticket. There are beautiful koi ponds, dragon-spine walls. But the real star is the bazaar surrounding it: there are snack stalls, tea shops, gazillion of souvenir pavilions. This is definitely where you need to try the xiaolongbang (soup dumplings) from Nanxiang Mantou Dian, the near-century-old dumpling institution, even if the line is long.
Evening: The Bund at dusk
Walk or cab to The Bund for sunset. The waterfront promenade on the Puxi side faces Pudong's skyline — the Oriental Pearl Tower, the Shanghai Tower, the bottle-opener-shaped World Financial Center — and as the sun drops, the skyscrapers light up in sequence. The stretch of Art Deco buildings behind you — the old banks and trading houses of 1930s Shanghai — is equally spectacular lit up at night.
Dinner: Sichuan Cuisine
Cab back to the French Concession for dinner at Sichuan Citizen on Donghu Road. This is the city's most beloved Sichuan restaurant, a plant-filled, cocktail-forward space that gets the numbing-spicy mala magic exactly right. Order the mapo tofu, the dry-fried green beans, the tea-smoked duck, and the kung pao chicken.
Nightcap: Your first speakeasy
Shanghai really comes alive at night, and now you’ll see why. Walk (it's close) to Speak Low on Fuxing Zhong Lu.
Speak Low is the grandfather of Shanghai's speakeasy scene and still the one. Founded by Japanese bartending legend Shingo Gokan, it holds a permanent seat in the global cocktail conversation, with a decade-long run on Asia's 50 Best Bars and The World's 50 Best Bars lists.
If there's a queue (there will be), walk three minutes to Barules on the corner of Fuxing and Fenyang. The entrance is through an actual phone booth — step inside and it opens into a small tin-roofed room that is probably the most real speakeasy still operating in Shanghai.
Day Two
Morning: People's Park and Breakfast
Grab breakfast or brunch at Apoli Itabakery — the French-Italian hybrid bakery that is beloved in Shanghai.
Then cab to People's Park in the heart of the city. Beyond the lawns and the trees and the museums ringing the park (Shanghai Museum, MOCA Shanghai), the reason to come is the Marriage Market that runs every Saturday and Sunday — parents posting laminated profiles of their unmarried adult children (height, income, Hukou status, zodiac sign) along the park's walkways, hoping to find a suitable match. It is weird, and uniquely Shanghai.
From there, wander onto Nanjing Road, the city's main shopping pedestrian artery. The stretch from People's Park to the Bund is a sensory overload of LED billboards, department stores, street food carts, and tourists from every Chinese province.
Lunch: A Xuhui Institution
Cab back to Xuhui for lunch at Ren He Guan, a beloved Shanghainese home-style restaurant that has been feeding locals here for decades. This is the food the French Concession grew up on — red-braised pork belly (hongshao rou), drunken chicken, smoked fish, seasonal greens. There’s usually a long wait, so I’d advice booking this place in advance.
Afternoon: Xintiandi and Shopping
Spend the afternoon in Xintiandi, the converted shikumen district on Taicang Road. It is touristy and polished in a way the French Concession is not, but it's also genuinely beautiful, especially the North Block's quieter lanes.
Two essential stops: Salomon (for shoes) and Monday Sleeping Club, the cult homeware and loungewear brand beloved by Shanghai's creative set.
Early evening: Coffee and a xinjiang dinner
Duck into one of the French Concession cafés for a late-afternoon coffee (Manor Coffee if you didn't go yesterday), then head to Xibo for an early dinner. Xibo specializes in the food of China's northwest Xinjiang region — Uyghur and Central Asian flavours. Order the hand-pulled laghman noodles, the cumin lamb skewers, the dapanji (big plate chicken), and the homemade yogurt.
Night: The speakeasy crawl
You have one night left! We can’t waste it.
Start at Sober Company on Yandang Lu — another Shingo Gokan venture, this one a three-in-one (really four-in-one) concept. You get Sober Café (coffee cocktails and all-day brunch), Sober Kitchen (modern Chinese), and Sober Society (a darker, digestif-focused cocktail bar modeled after classier-era Manhattan).
From there, cab to Xintiandi for The Odd Couple — Shingo Gokan again, this time paired with Steve Schneider of NYC's Employees Only. The concept: they're the eponymous odd couple. Gokan is precise, meticulous, studied; Schneider is fast, freewheeling, charismatic. The menu mirrors the partnership — Schneider creates a cocktail around a flavour profile, and Gokan makes his own interpretation of it, side by side on the menu.
Getting around
Download Didi before you land. The metro is excellent. Set up Alipay or WeChat Pay before you come — cash is basically obsolete, and your foreign card won't get you far.
What not to skip
If you only do three things: walk the French Concession at golden hour, watch the Bund light up at dusk, and drink at a speakeasy. The rest, you'll figure out.