This venue has closed.
What does the following list of things have in common? A miniature motorcycle, a giant lizard fossil, coffee grinders and siphons, flower pots, pictures of ships, owls and cats, bolts and a screw, a teddy bear and an ice-cream machine? Answer: They’re all on the walls of new Xintiandi restaurant and bar, The Brewer.
Opening at the start of this year, The Brewer is still in ‘soft-opening’ mode and as a result when we visited they only had two craft beers from a list of seven available. The drinks we were able to try – the ale and the stout, both at 68RMB – were tasty and showed promise however. While they were a little on the light side – 3.8 and 4.2 abv respectively – the daily buy-one-get-one-free happy hour (from 2-8pm) made everything slip down a little easier.
Located just across the road from Xintiandi and the adjacent Langham hotel, The Brewer is perfectly positioned for tourists, while its pleasant outdoor decking area ought to prove a popular spot for after-work drinks once the warmer weather rolls around. Inside, the venue is as much a dining room as it is a bar, with a fairly extensive food menu including salads (from 48RMB to 88RMB) and pizzas (78RMB for the ‘Margaret’ margherita).
There’s also a grill section with an Australian Wagyu ribeye (258RMB), a mixed grill plate with plenty of red meat, prawns and cod (358RMB) and a 1kg Wagyu prime ribeye on the bone for 960RMB. All grill dishes come with a bunch of sides too, upping your bang for buck. There’s also a few dinner sets, ranging from 328RMB-428RMB that get cheaper as your number of dining companions increases.
Our visit found the food and drinks to be a little inconsistent, but it’s still early days and we were intrigued enough to want to head back once The Brewer live up to their name and get more beers on tap.
Keep an eye on our website for more updates once they do.
