Location China’s most storied hotel sits right on the Bund, that curving promenade of colonial palaces that stare across at the cartoonish skyline of Pudong’s financial district on the other side of the Huangpu river. The Peace Hotel is to Shanghai what the Savoy is to London or the Plaza to New York – and all three are managed by Toronto’s icon-hungry Fairmont Raffles group. A taxi from Pudong International – for those not tempted by the magnificent bullet train – costs no more than €20 for the 45km ride. But be advised: unless you carry the hotel co-ordinates written out in Chinese characters, Shanghai’s most famous address will mean nothing to many cabbies.

Style Rather than just daub fresh lipstick on Shanghai’s grande dame, the owners opted for a three-year €50m makeover in a bid to rekindle the opulent romance of the 1930s. The gorgeous result is a visual swoon for Art Deco enthusiasts with floors of white marble, an octagonal sky-lit rotunda and a corridor of Lalique glass. Even the upscale ninth-floor Cantonese restaurant, with its extravagant turquoise colour scheme, has managed to stay this side of oriental kitsch. Elegant almost to a fault, all that’s really missing is that carefree decadence of old.

Guestrooms As befits the location, straddling the geographical divide between retro and futuristic Shanghai, the 270 rooms and suites are an exquisite fusion of East and West, old and new. The ambience is one of subdued restraint. Choice 30s flourishes brighten up the familiar menu of creature comforts, hi-tech gadgets and business services – with the unusual addition of an gas mask in the closet, in case of a fire. Only a handful of suites boast that riverfront view, but the 44 Fairmont Gold rooms have free Wi-Fi and access to their own ninth-floor lounge.

Can I work here? In the Jazz Age, plenty of backroom business was said to have been done here – even as the band played on downstairs (as they still do) and celebrities such as Chaplin, Coward and Shaw came here to party and mingle with entrepreneurs and diplomats. Now the dealmaking has shifted to the skyscrapers across the river, leaving the hotel as the city’s prime location to meet over afternoon high tea or evening cocktails. In a country that prizes relationship-building, this is one of those essential watering-holes where everyone comes to you.

Fairmont Peace Hotel