Shanghai Daily news

The sweeping views of the Bund and the Huangpu River at night are reason enough to enjoy the elegant ambience of the Glamour Bar but the award-winning cocktails are equal attractions, writes Douglas Williams.

Xu Zizheng (Nick), the head bartender in the Glamour Bar at M on the Bund, in action behind the bar. Xu was awarded first prize in the all-China section of the Remy Martin International Cocktailmixing Competition and finished eighth in the world in the finals held in Cognac, France in May. — DW

Glamorous" is one of those words that perennially teeters on the edge of unfashionable yet somehow manages to keep one of its Jimmy Choo-clad feet firmly planted in uber-cool-dom.
Like its cousin, "fabulous," it captures a particular existence that many of us don't realistically expect to attain in our normal, everyday, humdrum lives. Of course there's nothing normal, everyday or humdrum about what is truly glamorous and the Glamour Bar, on the seventh floor of Five the Bund, is also nothing if not fabulous.
The Glamour Bar is the first and foremost a cocktail bar that is part of the famous M on the Bund restaurant and the rarefied drinks served in the bar there require respect as does the establishment purveying the delectable libations. The emphasis here is on sophistication.
The drinks are the liquid distillation of the sultry, jazz-infused ambience of the place, each scene played out with the Bund as the dazzling backdrop. It's the sort of place where the conversations should be as barbed and witty as those in one of the classic "Thin Man" films or where the guys feel like Humphrey Bogart and the girls like Rita Hayworth.
The drinks' menu has a range of cocktails, each and every one a masterpiece in a glass and with at least two award winners. This is the thing - cocktail making has long been recognized as something akin to alchemy and a well mixed drink something to behold. One of the classic gin martinis on the Glamour Bar menu won a cocktail competition in Chicago in 1951 so drinkers can be near enough certain they're drinking the very same cocktail that Ol' Blue Eyes Frank Sinatra himself would have consumed. The other award-winning drink on the menu is a home-grown one created by the Glamour Bar's head bartender, Xu Zizheng (Nick).
An unassuming individual though clearly of some considerable discernment, Xu was first switched onto cocktails by the 1988 Tom Cruise movie "Cocktail." Firstly mastering the rather cumbersome Long Island Iced Tea it wasn't long before Xu was getting to grips with the altogether more subtle Martini.
"Every drink is different, as is every customer and it's the art of a good bartender to make the drink to suit the customer," Xu says. "Some people like their drink strong, some don't."
In May, Xu and fellow Glamour Bar bartender Zhang Zuiliang (Johnny) went to France and the Cognac region to compete in an international cocktail-mixing competition sponsored by Remy Martin. Xu came first and Zhang second in the China finals and in France they were competing against some 50 of the best bartenders in the world.
Xu finished eighth and Zhang was further back. "I was the last person of the day to mix my cocktail," Xu says. "It was nerve-racking but the judges drank every drop of my drink and they ate all the small foie gras snacks I made to complement it. I had to make them again for the photographers."
His creation, an aperitif, takes the guts of a Remy Martin VSOP, the sweetness of Dubonnet, railed in with some bitters and finished with a little orange. Gorgeously, graded rustic coloring and a rich taste that somehow manages to be dryly sweet.
"The Glamour Bar is not a disco, it's very classical and it's very beautiful. When I was first here the customers were mostly Westerners but now more and more are local Chinese," says Xu whose cocktail of choice is the Cosmopolitan.
Bar manager Benedict Porter enthuses about his fabulous bar: "This is a bar for grown-ups. We do sell beer of course but it's not really the sort of place to kick back after work with a pint."
Porter changes the cocktails according to the seasons, the availability of certain fruits and the weather. "There are three key factors to a good cocktail," he explains. "The first is the look, it must present well. Secondly, of course, it must taste good and lastly it must not take too long to make. A drink that takes half an hour to make is no use." The last sentiment is one that this thirsty camel heartily agrees with.
A tux isn't de rigueur in the Glamour Bar but wearing three-quarter length cargo pants and action sandals will certainly leave one feeling a little under-dressed.
As was said earlier, the Glamour Bar's drinks command respect and that's not only because of the prices, between 60 yuan (US$7.4) and 100 yuan. Part of a good cocktail's design is that it should be more, not less, and as was your correspondent's experience, the accumulated effect only becomes apparent further down the evening.