Pairet has drawn international acclaim for his avant-garde cuisine; most recently at Shanghai institution Jade on 36 at the Pudong Shangri-La. VOL is responsible for the city’s iconic Bar Rouge and Tan Wai Lou, among other ventures. With Mr & Mrs Bund, they train their focus on something more difficult than either conceptual fine dining or landmark nightspots: simplicity.
First and foremost, Mr & Mrs Bund is simple. No unnecessary bells and whistles here. The restaurant is more relaxed than its heritage location may suggest, and despite the prime Bund address, it errs on the side of understated chic, not show-off ostentatious.
This time, Pairet has turned his exacting talent to popular food – French at its very core, international around the edges – served family-style, in a manner recast for the modern table.
The menu is anchored on a concept the chef calls – somewhat cryptically – “declension”. There’s no direct translation, though perhaps ‘thematic variation’ comes close. Think of it as culinary riffing. You might start by choosing, say, the turbot. Then select the style of preparation: there’s turbot essential, turbot grenobloise, turbot bearnaise, or turbot truffle new meuniere. Or maybe you’d rather have the bearnaise sauce with chicken. Or prawns. Nah, beef. Perchance you’d fancy some frites to mop up the extra truffles, some mashed potatoes over which to douse the extra grenobloise sauce, or some green beans swimming in meuniere sauce. Everything’s fair game.
Existentially confused dishes? Not quite. Mr & Mrs Bund is about consensual cuisine – ‘cuisine for diners’ – and, as such, its menu indulges guests’ flights of fancies and caters to their whims. Because when a specific craving hits, substitutes and ‘close-enoughs’ are just not good enough.
“Mr & Mrs Bund is a restaurant where the diner, leads, through what they know, through their own choices,” explains Pairet. “Each diner will, out of all the menu. ‘proposals’ that we have, find something that suits him or her exactly.”
Wine service follows the kitchen’s populist lead. A handsome communal table anchors the central lounge, flanked by Enomatic wine machines. Leveraging the latest in wine preservation and service technology, Mr & Mrs Bund is able to – with chests proudly puffed – offer 32 bottles by the glass, in varying sizes. A personal mix of overlooked gems and unabashed classics, accessible at all price ranges, occupies both the machines and the full list.
And while it lives in a city of the future, Mr & Mrs Bund’s drinks menu is an homage to the past. Mixing up classics from the past 200 years – think whiskey bangs that warm from the inside out, a Fish House Punch with a mean one-two, and Negronis of which Count Camillo himself would be proud – the cocktail list is a throwback to the good ol’ days. Authentic. Gorgeous. Look elsewhere for quaffable foams and jellies – this bar deals only in straight-up sharp shooters. Indeed, in a metropolis that draws more Blade Runner comparisons than any other, a revival of the classics is a novel concept.
Family-style approach to service: Mr & Mrs Bund believes in sharing. So much so, in fact, that it has tweaked many a detail – from table settings to wait staff’s modus operandi to the soon-to-come custom-designed tableware and serving trolleys – to encourage it. Sure, a dish feeds one happily, but why delight in but one item when there is an entire spread on which to feast?
Formal service, course by course, is eschewed for a more casual sequence that has much in common with Chinese-style service, though Pairet points out that, historically, it is just as French to present dishes concurrently as it is Chinese. “Food in France was served in exactly the same way as in China – communal, sharing style – not so long ago, before French nouvelle cuisine,” the chef notes. “Before that, pre-1970s, all restaurants were serving food the same way I’m serving it at Mr & Mrs Bund.”
Loosen-that-tie ambience: A casual survey around the restaurant confirms that this is neither your grandma’s French bistro, nor a typical Bund supping spot. Denim- and Converse-clad service staff glide around diners. Guests leave their seats to mingle and self-serve wine, all to the tune of handpicked soundtracks with moxie ( there is no elevator muzak here). Some say the room brims with a certain je ne sais quoi; others know exactly what it is: a restaurant with a self-assured but relaxed attitude.
Til-the-cows-come-home hours: Mr & Mrs Bund is open until 4am, five nights a week. Past midnight, the music may crank up a notch, the lights may drop a smidge, but the food will steadily come, and the corks will not miss a beat. We don’t need to tell you what that could mean.
A bespoke dining experience built on a foundation of timeless favourites. A wine programme that encourages guests to sip, savour and swap between grapes, regions and producers as the mood strikes, as the food prompts, or as spontaneity inspires. And an approach to service and an attitude that recalls Sunday night dinner, with all the connotations that entails.
Need we go on?
