el Cóctel
This Venue has been nominated for a Reader's Choice Award 2010 in the category Shanghai - Best New Bar
This Venue has been nominated for a Reader's Choice Award 2010 in the category Shanghai - Best Cocktails
- City Weekend
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This place does just about everything right. Fabulous, comfy space with imaginative furnishings and decor, cool crowd, excellent service and a barman imported from Ginza making some of the best drinks in town. A short food menu is available serving cold cuts, oysters and sandwiches from el Willy. The food come at Western prices, but the cocktails are well worth the RMB68. One of the best bars in Shanghai.
Reviews Been there? Add a review!
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The door to the place is very small and unnoticeable. It is not that kind bar that is focused on attractting passengers who is walking down the street. I presumed the owner was trying to have some regular customer by providing some real deals of quality.
el Coctel has real cocktails. I meant, not those cocktails you take a sip and reluctantly drink it just because you paid for it. I am talking about you enjoyed every sip you take. The Japanese bartender Mune worked for el Coctel over 3 months, yet el Coctel only opened for 2 months. He was on training and that make sense about his being professional now. You can tell him specifically what kind drinks you want and he will make you one, out of the Menu, and you would not be disappointed.
My favorite cocktails are something sweet, should be mixed fresh ingredients like cranberry and passion fruit. I asked for another drink and told the bartender I wanted to stick to Cosmopolitan alike. 5 minutes later, I got my drink made with passion fruit!
BTW, I would like to thumb up for the chairs at the bar!!
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Yeah, it sucks if you're trying to get in and the bartender's telling you things are full upstairs, but it's great if you're already on the inside and enjoying the laid-back, not overly-full space. Cocktails are easily the best I've had in Shanghai and the bartender's more than willing (and able) to whip up creative custom concoctions upon request. If you go, I'd definitely recommend advance reservations. I've had friends hassled by bouncer there a number of times already.
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Excellent decor, fantastic ambiance and friendly staff. My companion was even offered to exchange her cocktail if it didn't please her.
Will be my regular from now on!
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I love it here! Great service, fabulous food and cocktails to-die-for! We dined here with a crowd of 16 people and everyone left happily satiated! Thank you for a fantastic experience!
Plus, it's fantastic that people know to dress up to dine here! So...to all you pajama wearing, house-slippers-loving hobos (like 'candyshoes'), there really are a 100 other bars for you to go to!
Oh and one last thing... to 'shanghaistars', you do know that the majority of servers in Shanghai are Chinese, don't you? So when you diss the service with your opnion, "It is a western bar, so you expect western customer service, not Chinese....", you're really dissing this country's lack of proper customer service training. Besides, I think the Chinese staff do a really good job of raising the customer service standards we don't expect in China.
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I thought the staff here was really good. Attentive and smiling - smiles are free and really important and there were plenty here.
As for the seating policy: they want everyone to get a seat, that seems cool to me. Before 10pm they can reserve tables but after they don't take reservations so it's first come first serve. If it's already full, try Tara 57, Kiitos or that new wine bar next to the pet shop - all about two mins away.
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Thanks for your explaination.
Hopefully you'll get your staff attitudes sorted out. It is a western bar, so you expect western customer service, not Chinese....
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Dear Karfus,
Thank you for your kind feedback..
Looking forward to have you next weekend, for any special suggestion on your drinks, please ask Marty (Manager of El Cóctel) he is a cocktail freak and i am sure he will be more than happy to prepare you a good drink!
Cheers!
Willy
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Dear elwilly,
I wouldn't worry too much about the comments posted here by "shanghaistars" and "chandyshoes". They both have exactly one (or none!) other comment on this board and as far as I can tell they are just "shill" accounts for one of your competitors.
I appreciate your feedback but if you read my comment carefully it wasn't particularly negative. But to be fair when you say you "weren't expecting such a big flow of people" it is a bit funny since we were the only two people there. Anyway we sincerely wish you the best of luck and we will be back this weekend for some more cocktails--looking forward to some caipirinhas.
Cheers, Karfus
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Dear Jsalz, Karfus, Chandyshoes, Shanghaistars & other costumers who didn´t have the right experience,
We really appreciate your comments because they make us improve.
To all of you that didn´t have a good experience, we apologise for those inconvenieces happening in our "Soft Opening".
We didn´t expect such a big flow of people coming to our newly opened "el Cóctel", we are conscious about those problems last weekend and we are working hard on improving them these days.
We hope to see you next time having a great time & again our sincere apologies.
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Agreed. I've been here a few times since I live nearby. I was recently there and asked about reserving a table for ~10 and was told even with a reservation "We can't guarantee that your friends will be let in".
So ok you don't take reservations?
Apparently they don't want business. Guess we'll all just go to one of the other 100 bars in town.
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Had before-dinner cocktails with the wife at around 7pm on Saturday night. Nice ambience and friendly manager. Unfortunately the place was still empty which we attributed to the early hour. The cocktail preparation was meticulous and a pleasure to watch, though at about five minutes per drink I worry about what will happen to the service when they start to draw a crowd to this presumably up-and-coming area. Anyway the proof is in the cocktails: my wife's apple caipiroska was refreshing and sweet while still packing a good kick, but I found the flavour of my mojito a bit off-putting (perhaps somehow due to the mint leaves available here?)
It's nice to see hand-chipped ice and it does make for a drink that stays cold and fresh, though it seemed as if there wasn't quite enough drink-to-ice ratio in the mojito. We'll be back for another try as they seem to have the right attitude (as well as cachaça and therefore the ability to make proper caipirinhas) but at RMB68 per drink they will have to keep working hard to make it sustainable.
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It's open now! Ambience is great, and drinks are tasty and well-made, but service still has lots of kinks to work out. For our party of ten, drinks arrived one by one over the course of a half hour or so (and they weren't all the right drinks either). A waiter spilled half of a Manhattan which we didn't order on my lap, then just left it on the table and scurried off without apologizing or bringing a new full one. Epic service fail.
Fortunately the manager did a good job of remedying the situation, as one should when things inevitably go wrong during a soft opening... otherwise this would be a 1-star review. I look forward to returning to give them another chance!
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This is the long-awaited cocktail bar from the team behind el Willy. It's not yet open, but as soon as it is (expected mid-November) we'll bring you the latest.
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Oh...forgot to mention they have delicious sandwiches!!!