A peacock on the Bund

[Photo provided to China Daily]

Intriguing art, comfort food and clever cocktails combine in a welcome resurrection, as Glam becomes a hot newcomer, Xu Junqian reports in Shanghai.

If you've still been mourning last year's closure of Shanghai's Glamour Bar, take heart: the comfort food and hip alcohol at its "grown-up" successor, Glam, is ready to drown any lingering sorrow.

By cutting off the three letters of one of her once most iconic works, cuisine and culture pioneer Michelle Garnaut is hoping that the recently opened bar could carry on the genes of its "father": setting the tone of the nightlife scene of the Bund, if not Shanghai, with its nice selection of eats.

"I would like the place to be more inclusive, participating and interactive. It's a grown-up's place," says Garnaut, who famously foresaw the potential of Shanghai's much famed but far less visited Bund as a destination for entertainment and dining when she opened her restaurant M on the Bund in 1999.

At Glam, however, the latest addition to what has become the M restaurant group, the excitement of being a first has been replaced by a more subtle and sophisticated style. A whopping collection of contemporary artworks, from Garnaut's private collection, is displayed against a rich palette of blue, inspired by the color of peacock feathers. To pay a tribute to this muse, a life-size taxidermy of the bird is enshrined at the entrance, behind a curtain of crystal beads that brings more light to the room.