Epic

Gaoyou Road After Dark

Xuhui's tree-lined residential streets carry a different energy to the Bund or the neon corridors of Jing'an. By 9pm on Gaoyou Road, the lane-house cafés have shuttered and the foot traffic thins to a knowing trickle: people who have somewhere specific to be. Epic sits at number 17, and it is a bar in Shanghai with a smart-casual dress code and recommended reservations. The neighbourhood context matters here. Xuhui has historically been the part of Shanghai where the city's bar culture grew up quietly, away from the tourist-facing spectacle of the waterfront, and Epic's tenure in the area reflects that character.

Where Epic Sits in the Shanghai Bar Scene

Shanghai's cocktail circuit has matured considerably over the past decade, and it now fragments across distinct tiers. At one end sit high-volume concept bars chasing social media footfall; at the other, a smaller group of technically serious programmes that have accumulated verifiable international recognition over multiple years. Epic belongs firmly in the latter cohort. A ranking of #41 globally on the World's 50 Best Bars list in 2021 placed it among a comparable set that includes some of the most discussed programmes in Asia. By 2024, it held the #54 position on Asia's Leading Bars; the 2025 edition places it at #74 on the same list, while a parallel inclusion on the Tatler Leading Bars Asia-Pacific 2025 list confirms that its standing in the regional conversation has not softened. The Top 500 Bars global ranking adds a #347 position for 2025, giving Epic an unusually broad spread of recognition across different ranking methodologies.

For context, Shanghai peers like Coa (Shanghai), Constellation, and Sober Company occupy the same serious-programme tier, and together they represent the city's strongest argument for inclusion in any Asia-Pacific bar conversation. Pony Up operates in the same neighbourhood orbit. What distinguishes Epic within this group is the combination of classic-cocktail foundations with a willingness to introduce bolder, more unexpected flavour directions — a positioning that sits between the purism of some older Shanghai bars and the experimental edge of the newer wave.

The Ritual of a Night at Epic

The editorial angle that makes Epic worth understanding is not any single drink or design choice but the particular rhythm of a visit. Shanghai's better cocktail bars have developed a culture of deliberate pacing that mirrors, in its own way, the discipline of a serious omakase counter: you arrive, you read the room, and you surrender some of the decision-making to the people behind the bar. Epic operates on this register. The retro setting provides a physical frame that encourages settling in rather than moving on. Epic opens at 7pm and runs until 2am every night of the week.

The classic cocktail foundation means that the ritual has legibility. A guest who knows what a well-made Negroni or Old Fashioned should taste like has a reference point, and Epic's approach, introducing bold, innovative flavour directions within that framework, gives those reference points a productive tension. This is the model that the better bars across mainland China have moved toward: fluency in the canon combined with a local or creative layer that makes the canon feel alive rather than archival. Bars like Hope & Sesame in Guangzhou and Janes & Hooch in Beijing work within a similar tension between tradition and provocation, and the fact that Epic has been doing this long enough to build a cross-cycle ranking history gives it a credibility that newer entrants are still earning.

A Broader China Bar Moment

Regional context is worth stating plainly. China's major cities now collectively host a bar scene that competes seriously with Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore for depth and recognition. Epic's sustained presence across multiple ranking years places it alongside programmes in Shenzhen, Changsha, and Wuhan that have contributed to this shift. Across the wider Asia-Pacific, the competitive set now extends to venues like The Ritz-Carlton Bar & Lounge in Macau and, further afield, Bar Leather Apron in Honolulu, both of which represent the same shift toward technically grounded programmes in destinations previously associated with more casual drinking culture. Epic's position in this peer group is not accidental; it reflects years of consistent execution in a city that now exports bar talent and bar culture rather than simply importing it.

Planning a Visit

Epic is at 17 Gaoyou Road, Xuhui, Shanghai. The bar is open seven days a week from 7pm to 2am, making it accessible for an early-evening drink or a late-night session without the scheduling pressure of some of the city's more restricted programmes. Xuhui is well-served by metro, and the immediate stretch of Gaoyou Road is walkable from several of the neighbourhood's other evening options. For anyone building a Shanghai evening around the bar circuit, the combination of Epic's Xuhui location with nearby options means a single neighbourhood can anchor the whole night. Reservations are recommended.