Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai

Location: Shanghai, ChinaType: Restaurant InteriorYear: 2025Architect: Wong Kar WaiPhotographer: Seth Powers, Agostino Osio
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Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai by Wong Kar Wai in Shanghai

Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai is Prada’s first stand-alone fine dining space in Asia, a restaurant interior conceived by the film director Wong Kar Wai on the second floor of Rong Zhai, a restored 1918 villa on North Shaanxi Road in Shanghai, in the Jing’an district. Opened on 31 March 2025, it strings together a pastry shop, a café-bar, a study, a library, a dining room and a garden terrace, serving Italian cooking with Chinese ingredients from late breakfast until dinner. Its name means to be obsessed with something, and the whole project is a love letter between Milan and Shanghai, the two cities at the heart of Prada’s story here.

Rong Zhai at dusk, the restored 1918 villa housing Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai, a grey stucco facade with a copper-domed corner tower, columned loggias glowing with warm light, palms and magnolias in the garden and a glass tower behind

Rong Zhai, a 1918 villa restored by Prada

Rong Zhai was built in 1918 and was long the home of the family of Rong Zongjing (Yung Tsoong-King), the industrialist known as China’s Flour King. Its grey stucco facade, copper-domed corner tower and stacked columned loggias hide rooms that mix European classicism and Art Deco with Chinese craftsmanship: carved timber staircases, panelled doors, encaustic tile floors and a ballroom under a vast stained-glass skylight. Prada began restoring the villa in 2011 with the architect Roberto Baciocchi and a team of Italian and Chinese artisans, who repaired its plasterwork, woodwork, tiles and stained glass, and it reopened in October 2017 as Prada Rong Zhai, a cultural venue with exhibitions and events. Mi Shang draws on that restoration, with each room honouring its original role as a setting for art and collections of antiques.

The Study at Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai, a long dark wooden table with cream chairs under a crystal chandelier, mustard patterned walls lined with porcelain plates on small brackets and a black steel window onto palms

Tête-bêche: Milan and Shanghai in mirror image

Wong Kar Wai built the concept around tête-bêche, the philatelic term for a pair of stamps printed upside down and mirrored against each other. ’Tête-bêche symbiosis: a seamless reflection between Italy and China, Shanghai and Milan,’ he said. Pieces from Prada’s art collections and Chinese antique furniture fill the rooms, and guests arrive along a corridor that recalls In the Mood for Love, with a rhythmic sequence of ceiling lights and woodblock artworks. It is his second collaboration with Prada, after one inspired by his television series Blossoms Shanghai in 2024, and it follows the brand’s earlier collaboration with Wes Anderson on Bar Luce at Fondazione Prada in Milan.

Framed gold and black woodblock print from Wong Kar Wai's Rising Clouds, Blooming Flowers series with Duo Yun Xuan at Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai, Chinese calligraphy around a seated figure and the words Blossoms Shanghai, on a green wall beside a dark wooden door

The Pastry Shop, The Caffè and The Study

The Pastry Shop is a tribute to Prada’s first store, opened in 1913 in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, with handcrafted cherry wood and brass counters, striped walls and mirrors displaying cassata, delizia al limone and tiramisù. At the centre of Mi Shang, The Caffè is anchored by a bar counter made by the local artisans who restored the villa’s woodwork, its turned-wood scrollwork recalling the social clubs of 1910s to 1930s Shanghai, beneath terracotta walls, red blinds and a crystal chandelier. Tucked inside The Caffè, The Study opens to the garden and terrace, its mustard walls hung with porcelain plates and rare collectibles around a long wooden table.

Ballroom of Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai, a vast stained-glass skylight in amber and blue above a pale room with dark wood wainscoting, marble columns and a polished parquet floor laid in a diagonal pattern

The Library and the Rising Clouds, Blooming Flowers woodblocks

In the South Right Wing, The Library is a teal-walled lounge with olive velvet sofas and a collection of books on Chinese craftsmanship, decorative arts and Italian design, including the legacy of Murano glass. It holds one of the works from Rising Clouds, Blooming Flowers, a series of Shanghai-style woodblock prints that Wong Kar Wai made with Duo Yun Xuan, the century-old art house. Inspired by his series Blossoms Shanghai, the prints come in five sets named after the colours of clouds, and Prada has permanently acquired the set called Blessing Cloud.

Daytime view of the garden facade of Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai, a three-storey white villa with a red-domed corner tower, stacked columned loggias and a balustraded roof terrace above a lawn, with high-rise towers behind

The Dining Room and The Terrace

From The Library, guests enter The Dining Room, the heart of Mi Shang, an intimate and nocturnal room that evokes the romance of In the Mood for Love, with pink velvet booths screened by pleated green panels, black marble tables and carved Chinese stools. Beyond The Caffè lies The Terrace, a colonnade of fluted columns that reimagines Arcadia Hall, the grand pavilion of Zhang Garden that Prada describes as Shanghai’s first open-air lounge to welcome women, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is furnished with 1930s Italian bamboo tables and chairs and cross-legged seating, a form traditionally associated with women.

Food by Lorenzo Lunghi and Diego Crosara

The menu, by executive chef Lorenzo Lunghi of Ristorante Torre at Fondazione Prada, pairs Italian classics such as ravioli, vitello tonnato and citrus duck breast with Chinese ingredients, while the pastries are by Diego Crosara, the world champion pastry chef and creative pastry director of Marchesi 1824. Upstairs, the third floor of the villa now holds The Apartment, a private space for Prada clients, and Prada Rong Zhai continues to host two art exhibitions a year.

Team and credits

Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai was conceived by Wong Kar Wai for Prada, inside Rong Zhai, the 1918 villa restored for Prada between 2011 and 2017 by the architect Roberto Baciocchi. The woodblock artworks were made with Duo Yun Xuan Art Center, the menu is by Lorenzo Lunghi and the pastries by Diego Crosara. The photographs of Mi Shang are by Seth Powers and the photographs of the villa’s ballroom, staircase and garden facade are by Agostino Osio, all courtesy of Prada.

Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai gallery

The Caffè at Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai, a long carved wooden bar with a glass-fronted counter and leather stools, terracotta walls with glowing sconces, red Roman blinds, a crystal chandelier and bentwood chairs around marble tablesDining booths at Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai, dusty pink velvet banquettes divided by pleated olive-green screens with mirrored edges, black marble tables with single irises and carved Chinese wooden stools on a dark timber floorRong Zhai at dusk, the restored 1918 villa housing Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai, a grey stucco facade with a copper-domed corner tower, columned loggias glowing with warm light, palms and magnolias in the garden and a glass tower behindPastry Shop at Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai, curved dark wood and glass display counters on a patterned blue-green floor, striped wallpaper with mirrors and a lit cabinet of boxed pastries, a doorway framing a teal room beyondThe Study at Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai, a long dark wooden table with cream chairs under a crystal chandelier, mustard patterned walls lined with porcelain plates on small brackets and a black steel window onto palmsThe Library at Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai, two curved olive-green velvet sofas around a low Chinese wooden table stacked with books, teal walls, a carved overmantel mirror and tall doors with painted glass panelsFramed gold and black woodblock print from Wong Kar Wai's Rising Clouds, Blooming Flowers series with Duo Yun Xuan at Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai, Chinese calligraphy around a seated figure and the words Blossoms Shanghai, on a green wall beside a dark wooden doorThe Terrace at Mi Shang at Prada Rong Zhai, a colonnade of white fluted columns with bamboo and rattan chairs around round stone tables on a patterned tile floor, alabaster pendant lights and potted palmsBallroom of Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai, a vast stained-glass skylight in amber and blue above a pale room with dark wood wainscoting, marble columns and a polished parquet floor laid in a diagonal patternHallway in Prada Rong Zhai, a carved timber staircase with fretwork balustrades beside panelled doors, pale green walls with a tiled dado of stylised floral motifs and a patterned encaustic tile floorDaytime view of the garden facade of Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai, a three-storey white villa with a red-domed corner tower, stacked columned loggias and a balustraded roof terrace above a lawn, with high-rise towers behind

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