Fu He Hui

Fu He Hui is a vegetarian restaurant on Yuyuan Road in the Changning district of Shanghai. Chef Tony Lu cooks a Zen-inspired tasting menu there, and it holds two Michelin stars.

The restaurant opened in 2014 as a passion project of Fang Yuan, the owner of the Fu group of Shanghainese villa restaurants. A Buddhist himself, he wanted a purely vegetarian place that was not tied to religion, temple cooking or imitation meat. Fu He Hui won its first Michelin star in 2017 and later a second, and it has climbed both the World's 50 Best and Asia's 50 Best lists from one edition to the next. The kitchen says it has created hundreds of original dishes since the start.

The menu runs to more than ten courses and changes with the seasons. A lychee is fried and glazed so that it tastes like sweet-and-sour pork, served with water chestnut and pineapple, while grapes take a bath in Champagne before a coat of sour plum powder. Porcini are baked with the smoke of grapevine wood, and matsutake has come with rice from a clay pot; an off-menu mapo tofu uses Yunnan wild mushrooms instead of meat. One dessert plants candied mushrooms in a dark crumble made to look like soil.

Tea takes the place of wine for many guests: the pairing uses four teas from Fujian, chosen by the owner, and a fresh lotus-flower tea opens its petals at the table. Stone and wood, soft light and the scent of eaglewood incense set the tone in the dining room, with private rooms spread over three floors. Without meat to fall back on, the kitchen leans on texture and illusion, and the quiet room makes the meal feel closer to a ceremony than a dinner out.