Lao Zheng Xing

Lao Zheng Xing has been cooking Shanghainese food since 1862 and is often described as the oldest Shanghainese restaurant in the city. It moved to its current address on Fuzhou Road in 1997, where it fills several floors, and it holds one star in the 2026 Michelin Guide Shanghai.

This is the place to try the dishes that define the city's cuisine. Yellow croaker fillet in wine lees sauce is a signature, with a soft, velvety texture and a mildly sour glaze. Stir-fried river shrimp is the other dish the Michelin inspectors single out, the shrimp bouncy inside crisp shells and coated in a briny-sweet sauce. A group can order several dishes and share them in the usual Chinese way.

Lao Zheng Xing is a family-friendly, unpretentious place, and prices sit in the middle range for the city. It suits groups, families and anyone wanting a solid introduction to Shanghainese food without the formality of a hotel dining room. Portions are made for sharing, so order a few dishes for the table rather than one each. The restaurant manages its own bookings, so call ahead if you want a table at peak times, especially at weekends. Credit cards are accepted.

The restaurant is a short walk from People's Square, the Shanghai Museum and the eastern end of East Nanjing Road. That makes it an easy lunch stop between the museum and the Bund. People's Square station, on Lines 1, 2 and 8, is the closest metro.

A 2023 food blog account traces the founding to two natives of Ningbo, Zhu Zhengben and Cai Renxing, whose names supplied the Zheng and Xing of the title, with Lao, meaning old, added once imitators appeared. The restaurant is now run by a state-owned holding company. Beyond the two signatures, the long menu includes drunken chicken in yellow wine, Shanghai smoked fish, sizzling river eel, braised sea cucumber with shrimp roe, tofu with hairy crab meat and scallion pancakes, which together give a good cross-section of benbang cooking.

If you are building a Shanghai food trail, pair a meal here with breakfast dumplings at one of the city's xiaolongbao or shengjian shops, and you will have covered the two sides of local eating: the quick, cheap snack and the long, shared family meal.