Cherry Xu’s Shanghai: An Insider’s Guide to the City’s Best Galleries, Food, Nightlife and More
By Cherry XuLast month, a new cultural hub, CHERUBY, opened its doors in Shanghai’s historic former French Concession with an inaugural exhibition by Mexican artist and designer Bárbara Sánchez-Kane. Founded by entrepreneur and collector Cherry Xu, CHERUBY is “a place where different currents in Shanghai meet each other without forcing it. We’re on Changle Road – a street with so much history, and one that has always carried a mix of local memory and new creative life,” Xu says.
“Shanghai’s energy right now feels open and porous,” she continues, “a place where new communities are quietly taking shape across disciplines and backgrounds. What excites me is the growing appetite for connection: not only among art and fashion communities, but also musicians, filmmakers, writers, and creative figures in food and hospitality who are all seeking spaces where dialogue can unfold more freely.”
Inside CHERUBY, Xu explains, “we work with a slower, more reflective pace, but I’m always thinking about how to stay close to the city’s real rhythm – the way people drift between ideas, scenes, and subcultures. What excites me is the possibility of letting these movements overlap: to create a space where fashion and art can speak to each other on their own terms, and where a new kind of language – one that feels true to this moment, and true to Shanghai – can quietly take shape.”
To celebrate CHERUBY’s launch – spanning art galleries, restaurants, shops, a spa, karaoke bar, and more – Xu shares with Something Curated a very personal guide to her home city. The below are her words.
Antenna Space
The exhibitions at Antenna Space always bring me small, unexpected shifts. Their approach to space and rhythm often opens up new ways of seeing – even if subtly – and I usually leave with a refreshed perspective.
Room 202, Building 17, No.50 Moganshan Rd. Shanghai
Sanbaibei
My home is on Jin Xian Road, which in Wong Kar-Wai’s Blossoms Shanghai is portrayed as a kind of culinary map of the city – and in real life, it truly is. Downstairs from the old Jinjiang Hotel, the restaurant 1929 hosted memorable parties during art week. Sanbaibei, a lively Ningbo tavern nearby, is always full. I often stop by for small dishes before heading to Side Bar to play darts – many of my friends happen to be surprisingly good.
56 Maoming Nan Lu, Huangpu District, Shanghai
ROAM
Earlier this year, CHERUBY hosted an event for Andrew J. Greene at ROAM. The space is layered: a restaurant on the first floor, a small bar on the second, and a compact techno room on the third. The atmosphere that night – people drifting between floors, conversations mixing with music – captured a kind of effortless, layered Shanghai energy I really love.
909 Yan’an Zhong Lu, Jing’an District, Shanghai
CHUN K
Karaoke is a very particular part of Shanghai’s social fabric. CHUN K is where people from all kinds of circles – artists, designers, friends – tend to converge late at night. Singing together has a way of disarming everyone; in those rooms, people become lighter, more open, and strangely more themselves.
3/F, Sun Moon Plaza, 618 Xujiahui Lu, near Ruijin Er Lu Huangpu District, Shanghai
fRUITYSHOP
fRUITYSHOP is CHERUBY’s neighbour and one of those places I never “plan” to enter, but always end up staying in. Their vinyl selection leans toward the experimental and independent, and the music playing inside is almost always unexpected. A single album cover or a few seconds of sound can shift your entire mood.
617 Changle Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai
Yuhe Tang
Yuhe Tang has become a sort of sanctuary for many of my close friends. My usual ritual is 45 minutes of massage followed by 45 minutes of moxibustion – a slow, steady rhythm that resets my body. In a city that moves as fast as Shanghai, those moments of warmth and quiet are essential.
Yuyao Road No.790 F2 (Close to Wuning South Road), Jing’an District, Shanghai
Labelhood
Labelhood is one of the most important boutiques supporting contemporary Chinese designers. I go there not just to browse but to understand how young designers are shaping new aesthetics through material, structure, and experimentation. The community around it is constantly testing ideas and rethinking what Chinese fashion can be. It feels less like a store and more like an evolving cultural node within the city.
No. 184, Fumin Road, Jing’an District, Shanghai
Feature image: CHERUBY. Photograph by Burn Li. Courtesy of CHERUBY