Xintiandi, Shanghai

What is Xintiandi?

Xintiandi (新天地, "New Heaven and Earth") is a pedestrian district in Huangpu built from old Shanghai lanes of shikumen houses. The grey-brick façades and carved stone doorways were kept; inside are restaurants, bars, coffee shops and boutiques. There's no traffic, no gate and no ticket.

Shikumen — "stone gate" houses — were two- and three-storey terraces packed along narrow alleys, and most of old Shanghai once lived in them. Hong Kong's Shui On group took on the site in the 1990s and opened the restored block in 2001, merging some houses into larger venues and paying for the restoration with new buildings next door.

There are two halves. The North Block is the shikumen lanes with restaurants, bars and the Shikumen Open House Museum. The South Block, across Xingye Road, mixes old houses with modern buildings, shops and a mall. At the corner of Xingye Road and South Huangpi Road stands the house where the Communist Party first met in July 1921, with the new memorial hall beside it.

Is Xintiandi worth visiting?

Yes, for an hour or an evening — but know what you're getting. It's a polished, upmarket reconstruction rather than a lived-in neighbourhood, and restaurant prices sit well above the Shanghai average. Come for the architecture in the morning, the First Congress memorial if modern Chinese history interests you, or dinner on a terrace after dark.

If you want shikumen lanes where people still live, go to Tianzifang instead, or as well: it's about 1.5 km south-west as the crow flies, roughly 20 minutes on foot. And if you want long leafy walks past old villas, that's the wider former French Concession to the west — Xintiandi is only its small eastern corner.

Things to do in Xintiandi

• The First CPC National Congress memorial — the house at 76 Xingye Road (106 Rue Wantz in 1921), home of party founder Li Hanjun, plus the new hall at 374 South Huangpi Road. Free with a booking.
• Shikumen Open House Museum (屋里厢) — a 1920s–30s family home in the North Block: about five rooms of period furniture and a tiny tingzijian, the room over the kitchen once let cheaply to struggling writers and students.
• The North Block lanes — grey brick, carved stone lintels, wrought-iron balconies. Best before the restaurants open, when the alleys are empty.
• The South Block — shikumen mixed with glass: shops, a mall and a cinema. More for shopping than for architecture.
• Evening terraces — after dark the lanes are lit and tables spill onto the paving. This is Xintiandi at its liveliest.
• Metro stations named after the congress — since 2021 both nearby stations carry the name Site of the First CPC National Congress, which makes them easy to spot on the map.

Memorial of the First CPC National Congress: hours and booking

The memorial opens Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00–17:00, last entry 16:30, and closes on Mondays unless it's a public holiday. Admission is free but by real-name reservation, according to Meet-in-Shanghai, the city's tourism portal, and local media. Without a booking you may be turned away once the daily quota is full.

The new memorial hall at 374 South Huangpi Road opened on 3 June 2021 and holds a permanent exhibition on the party's founding. The original house at 76 Xingye Road is where the congress opened in July 1921, in Li Hanjun's home in the French Concession. After the concession police searched the house, the delegates held their last session on a hired tourist boat on South Lake in Jiaxing.

Allow 40–60 minutes. Even if party history isn't your thing, the congress house is the one place in Xintiandi where you can see a shikumen interior roughly as it was a century ago.

Xintiandi vs Tianzifang vs the French Concession

All three lie in the former French Concession; Xintiandi and Tianzifang are on its eastern side. Times are YesGo's estimates.

Paying in Xintiandi as a foreign visitor

The lanes and the memorial are free, but restaurants, cafés and the metro aren't. China runs on Alipay and WeChat Pay; both let you link a foreign Visa or Mastercard with your passport — set it up before you fly, since verification codes don't always arrive while roaming. QR payments need mobile data.

Metro gates accept foreign contactless cards, and ticket machines sell single journeys. Keep some cash in small notes as a backup: sellers must accept yuan, though they may not have change.

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Every Shanghai place worth an evening, rated by YesGo. Tap a column heading to sort.

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How to do it right

• Arrive around 9:00: the lanes are empty, the façades are free of crowds, and you can reach the memorial before the tour groups.
• Evenings are for dinner and terraces, not for architecture photos — the brickwork and carving show best in daylight.
• Restaurants here charge well above the Shanghai average; the streets around the district are cheaper for a quick bite.
• To see a shikumen from the inside rather than just its façade, go into the congress house or the Shikumen Open House Museum.
• Pair Xintiandi with Tianzifang: about 20 minutes apart on foot, they show two very different takes on the same architecture.
• Book the memorial a few days ahead: places are capped each day and go faster at weekends and on holidays.

Questions