PAC, or Park Avenue Central, has officially opened in Jing’an, Shanghai. This mixed-use development is just bursting with restaurants and cafes, located at the corner of Changde Lu and Wuding Lu.
About PAC – Park Avenue Central
New kid on the block PAC is Singaporean real estate giant Keppel Land’s first mixed-use development in Shanghai. The project is huge and spans 43,000sqm, has a 180-meter office tower, a mall, and multiple terraced annexes for lifestyle, retail and F&B. It officially opened on December 20, 2024.
There is a significant amount of lifestyle spaces integrated into the complex’s design — open spaces with lawns, park benches, and kid-friendly play areas. And almost every venue has a terrace with outdoor seating.
Bonus for pet owners: PAC is dog-friendly, including inside the mall, but stroller carriages are required indoors.
20+ Restaurants, Cafes & Bars
There are about 20 restaurants, cafes, and bars with more on the way.
Some spaces are still empty and pending, especially on the top floor of the mall. There’s also a spa, a couple gyms, a Hema grocer in the basement, a fancy pet hotel, a flower shop, and a small digital driving range / golf experience center.
Coming Soon
Now, about those “coming soon” signs.
A few names on the horizon include Pie Bird, Western restaurant La Blanche (already has locations at Hengshan 8 and Raffles Changning), Turkish barbecue restaurant Sultan from Yiwu, Taizhou restaurant Xi Xiao Xian (席小鲜), creative Chinese restaurant Xiang Ting Yuan (闲庭院), and Rong, which looks like a gelato shop — possibly with boozy gelato.
What’s Already Open?
First up, Uni Shushi. This tiny omakase restaurant comes from Sun-San of Ochiyo fame. Located on the ground floor, this small restaurant is intimate with only 12 seats, six at the bar counter and six in a private room.
The omakase menu is a steal at ¥498 or ¥698, available for lunch and dinner. If you know Ochiyo’s reputation for top-notch sushi, you know this is going to be good. Spoiler: It is. Great value, great sushi. More on that later.
A few doors down is Bresca Bomboloni, a dessert shop specializing in — you guessed it — bomboloni aka Italian donuts, piped with all sorts of fillings. Some lean Asian (yuzu, matcha, and injeolmi), while others stick to classics of chocolate, strawberry, and hazelnut.
The bomboloni are not bad, fluffy and not too dense, priced between ¥22 to ¥26 a piece. They had a deal when I went — buy three get ¥5 off. They also do coffee, ¥20 for an americano.
For a touch of celebrity flair, there’s Yue Ji (越稽), a Shaoxing restaurant that’s an outpost of the Bib Gourmand-awarded original in Hangzhou. The menu revolves around Shaoxing’s six key flavors: Shaoxing’s six key features: soy sauce (酱), rice wine fermented (糟), rotten or fermented (霉), stinky (臭), drunken (醉), and pickled (腌).
At the main entrance, Tvino Spanish Tavern serves up casual Spanish fare and tapas. Then there’s Pomodoro, a new Italian concept from the team behind Xintiandi’s Il Teatro.
Opposite that is Wanhui Shanye Anhui Cuisine (皖荟·山野徽菜), an Anhui cuisine chain with eight locations in Shanghai and stellar ratings on Dianping. I hadn’t heard of it before, but now I’m curious.
Next door is Table A Deli, a cafe and bistro from the folks behind the Xiaohongshu-famous Bake No Title.
By day, it’s a cafe with fresh pastries; by night (from 5:30pm), it transforms into a bistro. The bistro menu is largely western with dishes like oxtail cannelloni, seafood paella, charbroiled threadfin fish, and chicharrones.
Directly above is Zifu Xiao Guan (子福小馆), serving Suzhe cuisine (Jiangsu and Zhejiang).
Last week, Catch of the Day (捕获) was still waiting on furniture. This week, it’s open for business! From what I can tell, it’s contemporary Chinese with a focus on seafood and wine, plus some Qingdao specialties.
For bars, there’s only one for now: Beach Monkey Club. It’s connected to the mall annex and does coffee, cocktails, and shisha. It’s motorcycle/bike-themed. You can’t miss it — there’s a chopper bike out front.
Upstairs is Jiu Chu·Huaiyue (九厨·淮粤), serving Huaiyang and Cantonese cuisine. It’s part of a chain with multiple locations in Shanghai.
There’s also a Mill Hill, a cafe and dessert shop, and Shen Zhi Gao (申之糕), a Chinese snack shop (gaodian 糕点) next to Hema.
There you have it — PAC in a nutshell.
PAC (Park Avenue Central)
Address: 688 Changde Lu 常德路688号
