Blowing up the Chinese social media feeds is Trifle, a bakery that’s drawing a hip ‘n’ cool crowd seeking fresh baked breads and pastries while on their “city walk” of Shanghai.
Trifle is located on Tai’an Lu, around the corner from Wukang Lu, the darling street of city walk goers. “City walk” is a pretty popular trend in Shanghai, and traction really picked up in 2023. It’s pretty self-explanatory, meaning to walk the city, but with the intention of spending as minimal as possible while finding entertainment in people watching or street photography.
In addition to Trifle’s good bakery selection, I believe much of its success has to do with its location, a high traffic nexus rife with street photographers, aspiring Red Book KOLs, and vloggers. The space works for that crowd — industrial design with exposed walls, red brick and concrete, and an indoor-outdoor seating area.
The display is constantly being replenish with fresh products, which include everything from more traditional breads of baguette (¥15), croissant (¥15), and country-style loaves (sourdough, ¥20/quarter) to the odd twist like blueberry sourdough (¥40/quarter) and a croissant stuffed with spicy Guizhou sausage (¥32).
As far as I can tell, the pastries and breads are solid.
The grape—I think they mean raisin—cinnamon roll (¥20) was pretty good, but it was more of a cross between a croissant and a traditional cinnamon roll. They also serve coffee, ¥25 for an espresso, ¥30 for a flat white, ¥35 for a dirty. Coffee is good.
It’s great if you live in the area and want to pick something up for home. It doesn’t work for meetings or as an alternative workspace, as the music selection tends to be on the hardcore end of genres for a bakery, by that I mean electronic and loud. However, if you want to join in city walkers and people watch, it’s a very entertaining pitstop.
Trifle
Address: No. 5, 27 Tai’an Lu 泰安路27弄5号
Tel: 18121072705
Hours: Daily, 8am-9pm
