Imperial Treasure is a chain of Chinese restaurants hailing from Singapore operating several formats: Fine Chinese Cuisine, Teochew Cuisine, Peking Duck, Shanghai Cuisine, Steamboat. The first restaurant specializing in Teochew Cuisine was established in 2004 in Singapore and the Shanghai restaurant that I visited was their first international location opened in 2012. It is a Cantonese restaurant and for some reason has two Michelin stars. They seem to do good business in Shanghai as they just opened another location using the Steamboat concept. You might encounter them also in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Incheon, and London.
The visit
I went for a brunch on a Saturday. I made a reservation on the phone. The restaurant is huge and occupies an entire floor of YiFeng Galleria near the Bund (across the street from the Peninsula Hotel).
At 11am the place was already packed. It must be their busiest time of the week. It is really a local favorite. For lunch they have a special dim sum menu, but also the standard menu with more delicacies is available.
I started with my bellwether dish for Cantonese restaurants: the crispy pork belly. It was exceptional! On par with Ji Ping Court, better than the one from Lei Garden (the skin was tender, but still super crispy) and juicer than the one I had at Canton 8.
I had their Teochew dumpling, that has a vegetarian filling. I had better ones in Hong Kong.
Their super classic pork dumpling siew mai was also ok, but nothing exceptional.
The fried wonton with shrimp meat were quite good.
The pan-fried carrot cake with Chinese sausage was also pretty ordinary.
Finally, I found excellent their black sesame glutinous dumplings wit grated peanut. The sesame paste filling was particularly tasty.
The check
Final check (also including a bottle of Evian water and a juice) went for 377 RMB (around 52 USD). The value is there, prices were quite reasonable and the setting was high class.
Do not get me wrong, the food was very good, but the two Michelin stars will remain a mystery to me (same with Canton 8… looks like in Shanghai they give you stars if you make a half decent dim sum).
Having visited all the Michelin-starred restaurants in Shanghai with a sizable dim sum menu, I will say that Seventh Son beats all for quality while Yi Long Court has the best luxury dim sum.
Where in Shanghai:
L402-403, Yi Feng Gallery, 99 Beijing Dong Lu.