We got completely distracted by the museum shop.

We’re always looking for beautiful presents to bring home from a trip, and this is one of the best places we’ve found in Shanghai. There are wonderful photography books, prints and reproductions of photographs that you would actually want to frame and put on your wall. Proper presents, rather than another souvenir that says Shanghai on it.

Then there’s the food. The Fotografiska Café Bar is integrated into the art bookshop, and downstairs you’ll also find MONA by Fotografiska, their beautiful Mediterranean-inspired restaurant with Asian influences. Think black glazed tiled floors, cameras everywhere and tables outside overlooking the Suzhou River.

We had an amazing artisanal Chinese kombucha and incredibly delicious spicy fried mushrooms. But perhaps my favourite entertainment was simply sitting outside and watching the running clubs stream past. Shanghai, it turns out, takes its running very seriously. Groups and groups of runners kept appearing along the river while we sat very happily with our kombucha and mushrooms, doing absolutely no exercise whatsoever.

And one final, very important detail: perfect toilets.

A great museum shop, great food, a beautiful place to sit by the river and, apparently, there is also an excellent photography museum upstairs.

We’ll get to that next time.

Fotografiska Shanghai
127 Guangfu Road, Jing’an District, Shanghai