/ Reviews / French
Changeable as the Sea
by Tom Lee
on Friday, July 01, 2011 12:00 AM
Hotel Pravo is the latest hotel to sprout up amidst Shanghai's evergreen property forest. Located north of the Bund, just across the SuZhou Creek from the famous promenade, the property contains 86 rooms in six different styles, with views from the south-facing suites providing pleasant vistas of the HuangPu river and the architectural sights.
Owned by the Brilliant & Consulting Group, Hotel Pravo is run by the same people that operate Family Li's Imperial Cuisine. Bearing this in mind, it's not surprising that Yu Yuan, one of Pravo's two main restaurants, is a beautifully decorated Chinese eatery serving dishes from the Qing Dynasty period. The other dining option, however, is a little bit more of an adventurous step.
Mare Western Restaurant was initially conceived as a seafood-dominated venue with a nautical interior to match.
Looking at the restaurant's current food and design, however, it's clear that something has changed since its birth. There are still elements of the original master plan evident, but more noticeable are the vines and flowers that intersperse the beige furniture - the kind of flora one would expect more in the French countryside than in a Spanish seaside town. This alteration is reflected in Executive Chef Encore Wang's Provencal dishes, adding a little nuance to the restaurant's largely typical buffet fare, which is priced at RMB168 for all-you-can-eat.
Seeking to further differentiate itself from the mass of similar options, Mare features a different cuisine each month amidst its standard mix of dishes. Last month, the theme was based around the party spirit of Mardi Gras, utilizing carnival masks and Budweiser beer to instill a gently convivial atmosphere. July's motif is "Asian", a much broader category that's in direct contrast to the "Western" element Mare professes. No doubt this approach is in hopes of widening appeal, as the nascency of the venture makes it vulnerable to disregard. As further incentive to draw punters through the doors, the conventional 15 percent service charge will be waived for those who download coupons from Hotel Pravo's website.
What is most striking about Mare is it's indecision about what it wants to be: a standard buffet, a restaurant specializing in seafood or a Provencal eatery. All these elements have become amalgamated into a single concept that defies easy classification - but does easy classification necessarily make for good dining anyway?.
A restaurant still in flux, Mare is like the sea god Proteus: constantly shifting shapes to avoid being captured in any one form.
