PHÉNIX eatery & bar

From the pass to the hotel kitchen

The pigeon arrives at the pass with its breast stuffed with foie gras and its confit legs finished in plum sauce. In Shanghai, Ugo Rinaldo, Chef at PHÉNIX eatery & bar, holds that French register inside The PuLi Hotel and Spa, where the room looks toward Jing'an Park and the kitchen works in the present tense of service. His route to this station was built through the brigade: EMTH beziers first, then apprenticeship and demi chef de partie work at Hôtel de la Cité from 1999 to 2003, followed by commis posts at AUBERGE IPARLA by Alain Ducasse and Le Louis XV Alain Ducasse in 2003.

The line continued through Restaurant 59 poincare by Alain Ducasse in 2004, Hôtel Scribe Paris from 2004 to 2005, and a sous chef post at Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme from 2006 to 2010. Head chef roles followed at One&Only Dubai 101 restaurant from 2010 to 2013 and STAY by Yannick Alleno from 2013 to 2014, before executive posts at Sarment Group, CINKER PICTURES, and MGM MACAU. Since 2021, Rinaldo has also served as Executive Chef of The PuLi Hotel and Spa. At PHÉNIX, that history reads less as biography than muscle memory: repetition, station work, service pressure, and the calm needed to keep a hotel restaurant precise without making it stiff.

French technique, Shanghai produce

PHÉNIX works as a modern French brasserie with a fine-dining spine, grounding French method in Chinese produce and seasonal buying. The menu has carried lettuce gazpacho with Atlantic brown crab, grilled zucchini with fromage blanc, heirloom tomato salad, raw langoustines with chawanmushi, sea urchin with osetra caviar, seafood soup, barramundi, cumin marinated lamb loin, and roast duck breast with seared foie gras. Rinaldo's own profile names Le Pigeon and LA CREVETTE SAUVAGE CARABINERO as signatures, both direct names for plates that do not need ornamental language around them.

The restaurant offers a 6-course Découverte menu and a 12-course Expérience menu, with à la carte alongside them. Recent dishes have included Pan-Seared French Blue Lobster with Smoked Lobster Sauce, Slow-Cooked Ox Tongue in Red Wine Reduction, and French Chestnut Cream Tart. The bread program matters here too: warm sourdough, crusted properly, set down with house-made butter before the larger gestures arrive. The wine list leans natural, which suits a chef who has written plainly about attachment to a family estate rosé and to the producer behind the bottle. The preference is legible at the table: acidity, texture, and a certain refusal to over-polish the plate.

A room held in low light

The room at PHÉNIX keeps the pace measured. Natural light comes across the dining room by day, with views toward Jing'an Park; inside, the materials carry low-key references to Parisian Art Deco, including mother of pearl and rose gold, while staying tied to the quieter language of the hotel. It is not a hushed room. Conversation has space, and the pass can keep moving without turning dinner into ceremony.

That matters for Rinaldo's cooking because the plates often sit between hotel ease and kitchen discipline. Sourdough and butter, lobster sauce, pigeon with plum sauce: each belongs to a room where comfort is allowed, but the method still has to hold. The address has held one Michelin star since opening in 2016, including the 2024 and 2025 editions, and the meal unfolds in a bench-side rhythm. The last memory is likely to be tactile: the cut of Le Pigeon, the gloss of the plum sauce, the quiet pull of Jing'an Park beyond the glass.