The Merchants

Shanghai
Paulo de Souza × Kim Hock Su × Ray Adriansyah

Special Event | 6 August 2026

DAYOU × Au Jardin × Locavore NXT: The Sensory Flow Of The Elements: The Merchants Shanghai’s “Metal · Water · Wood” Six-Hands Dinner

The Merchants is one of Shanghai’s most successful restaurants, one that combines aspects of fine dining and bistro cuisine remarkably well. Its “Shared Table” series is built around culinary dialogue across regions. On the evening of 6 August, 2026, a trio of outstanding restaurants, The Merchants, Penang’s Au Jardin, and Bali’s Locavore NXT came together for a six-hands dinner structured around three of the Five Elements: “Metal → Water → Wood.”

Rather than a straightforward exercise in fusion, the dinner was better understood as three distinct culinary languages placed at the same table. Seafood and spice, plants and fermentation, ageing and fire moved in and out of focus, creating a sensory progression from freshness and acidity towards smoke, maturation, and earthy notes. From a wine perspective, this kind of menu is particularly compelling. Terroir has never been simply a matter of soil and climate; it also encompasses human choice. The same applies to food: local ingredients and traditions of fermentation, pickling, spice, and ageing all shape the gastronomic identity of a place.

Three Chefs, Three Culinary Languages

Paulo de Souza, representing the host restaurant The Merchants, placed the greatest emphasis on ageing, cooking over fire, and regional Chinese flavours. From Guizhou sour soup and preserved plums to dry-aged poultry, his dishes were clearly structured and full of intent.

Kim Hock Su of Penang’s Au Jardin—ranked No. 39 in Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2026—brought a distinctly Malay Peninsula perspective. Seafood, acidity, spice, and sauce-driven flavours were central to his cooking, though reinterpreted through the lens of modern fine dining.

Ray Adriansyah of Bali’s Locavore NXT—ranked No. 44 in Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2026—focused more closely on plants, local ingredients, and textural expression. Breadfruit, okara, pili nuts, Limnocharis, mushrooms, and banana were not supporting elements, but the heart of the dishes themselves.

The differences between the three chefs and their visions were, in fact, precisely what made the dinner work.

Au Jardin opened with a scallop tartlet of green peas, pomelo, and smoked cream. The natural sweetness of the peas was particularly effective, creating an excellent balance between the richness of the smoked cream and the bright acidity of the pomelo, while also highlighting the sweetness of the scallop. The composition was not complicated, but it was extremely precise.

This was followed by a “luxury nacho” of aged red snapper, rendang lion’s mane mushroom, avocado, and makrut lime. Having absorbed coconut milk and complex spices, the lion’s mane mushroom developed a distinct meat-like texture, while the makrut lime lifted the aromatics. For me, however, the spices were slightly too dominant: the natural freshness of the aged red snapper was almost entirely obscured. The flavours were powerful, but the hierarchy of the dish felt somewhat unbalanced.

Locavore NXT’s pickled pumpkin retained a wonderfully crisp texture. Breadfruit cream and cashew caramel added roundness without becoming cloying; instead, the dish remained remarkably fresh. The okara cake reminded me of the way Chinese vegetarian cuisine uses plant-based ingredients to emulate the texture of meat. The okara had considerable chew and even delivered a similar sense of satisfaction, before the acidity of tamarind-glazed pickled mushrooms and the faint bitterness of a coffee emulsion brought the dish to a close.

The Merchants’ Dalian sea conch with Guizhou sour-soup “escabeche” immediately brought the palate back to China. Escabeche traditionally refers to the use of an acidic medium to prepare fish, meat, or vegetables; here, it was reinterpreted through Guizhou’s fermented sour soup. The conch was firm and fresh, while the soup brightened the entire dish and preserved a strong sense of place. The subsequent sea-urchin toast was more direct: the sweetness, salinity, and richness of the uni met the toasted fragrance of bread in a simple but highly effective composition.

The Merchants’ Lion-Head goose-neck and foie gras roulade was one of the most complete dishes of the opening courses. Although the foie gras was rich, it never felt heavy. Plum-wine jelly and sour-plum sauce supplied a clear.

Au Jardin’s heirloom beetroot with sweet shrimp, smoked fish-bone sauce and caviar brought sweetness, smoke and saline marine notes together in a single dish. I enjoyed the chilli crab with soft-shell crab even more. Reconstructed in a fine-dining format, it still retained everything one hopes for from chilli crab: the sweetness of the crabmeat, the sweet-sour and mildly spicy sauce, fried mantou to absorb it, and pickled cucumber for a timely burst of freshness. Refinement had not come at the cost of pleasure.

Locavore NXT’s grilled leek and pili-nut soup developed the “wood” theme further. Pili nut contributed a fine vegetal richness, charred leek added smokiness, and pickled Limnocharis—an edible aquatic plant common in Southeast Asia—brought crunch, green herbal notes and a subtle bitterness. The interplay of creaminess, char and crispness was particularly well handled.

In the main-course section, The Merchants’ dry-aged “poultry” dish was especially interesting, bringing chicken, duck and pigeon together on one plate. The chicken was delicate; the duck offered more fat, resilience and texture; while the pigeon was firmer, with a more pronounced game-bird character. The continual shift among these textures made the dish far more engaging than a single bird could have been. Dry-ageing further brought out savoury, nutty and lightly gamey notes, without becoming overly intense.

Au Jardin’s grilled abalone, Shaoxing-wine wonton and barley risotto moved into a more mature, savoury register. Shaoxing yellow wine naturally carries notes of maturation and oxidation—nutty, cereal-like and mellow—which connected seamlessly with the springy abalone and the chewiness of barley. It was an important turning point in the dinner’s movement from bright freshness towards darker, deeper flavours.

Locavore NXT’s seasonal mushrooms were comparatively quiet, expressing the “wood” element through the mushrooms’ own umami, earthy character and varied textures.

One bottle of Champagne throughout the meal

Rather than changing wines course by course, I opened just one bottle: Eric Rodez 2013 Champagne Pinot Noir Les Beurys Ambonnay Grand Cru.

It possessed excellent acidity: crisp, energetic and clearly defined on the palate. Yet this was by no means weightless Champagne. Its mid-palate had real substance and presence. During the first half of the dinner, the bubbles and acidity continuously refreshed the palate against scallop, sour soup, sea urchin, and the repeated presence of acidity and spice. As the meal moved towards foie gras, pili-nut soup and dry-aged poultry, its volume and structure became increasingly apparent; it was never overwhelmed by the food. Eric Rodez is a family Champagne grower in Ambonnay, where the family has a long history of viticulture. Located in the Montagne de Reims, Ambonnay is one of Champagne’s most important Pinot Noir Grand Cru villages. Its chalk-based soils often allow Pinot Noir to attain ripeness, structure and considerable length. Les Beurys is Eric Rodez’s single-parcel (vin de parcelle) cuvée, sourced from several small plots owned by the estate within this lieu-dit. It highlights the individual expression of site, variety and vintage. The base wines are fermented and aged in small oak barrels, without malolactic fermentation or filtration.

Drinking only one wine throughout also made it easier to observe how the food changed the wine’s expression. At first, its crispness and tension stood out most clearly. As fat, umami and mature flavours accumulated, its body and structural dimension became increasingly evident.

Dessert: when creativity moved ahead of flavour

Dessert was the most experimental section of the dinner—and, for me, the part most likely to create a sense of distance from the diner.

The Merchants’ Spanish-style torrija with fermented soy-milk ice cream and matsutake was the most complete dessert of the evening, and my favourite. The torrija was caramelised on the outside and soft, moist and tender within. Fermented soy-milk ice cream contributed a measured acidity, while matsutake added delicate woody and mushroom-like nuances. It sounded bold on paper, but felt entirely natural on the palate. Most importantly, it was delicious before it was conceptual.

By comparison, Au Jardin’s seaweed-herb ice cream with pear and oxidative-wine foam, as well as Locavore NXT’s Everything Banana, felt somewhat too creative for me. The technical skill and ideas were certainly present, but the flavour logic did not communicate itself as directly as it had in the preceding courses. At the end of such a meal, I found myself hoping for a clearer conclusion rather than desserts that continued to ask the diner to interpret an idea.

In a sense, the issue was not a lack of creativity, but that creativity had moved ahead of flavour.

What remains most memorable from the dinner is not necessarily the conceptual framework of “Metal, Water and Wood,” but those moments in which flavour truly came together: the simple, precise balance of scallop and green peas; the soft-shell crab that retained the satisfaction of chilli crab; the changing textures of chicken, duck and pigeon; and the torrija, which sounded daring but was ultimately simply delicious.

After crossing regions, techniques and concepts, cuisine still returns to its most fundamental principle: it must taste good. On this evening, it certainly did.

This Restaurant & Wine column differs from our regular features in that it describes a special evening featuring a six-hands dinner with two visiting chefs from other Asian countries. As is always the case, the meal was paid for entirely by our magazine: we donot accept any sponsored meals and never write about them. Like with our wine reviews, you can rest assured that no dinner or restaurant that is ever written up in the Ian D’Agata Wine Review has been paid for by anyone but ourselves. It is your guarantee of our independent reviews.

Wine Tasting Note