Fu He Hui is a haven of stillness amid the car horns and frantic traffic of Shanghai. We have slipped into a modern building in the former International Settlement and have been shown upstairs to the restaurant, where our quiet private room is decorated with an almost Japanese minimalism. The dark wooden table is uncovered, and a latticed screen divides us from other guests. There’s an orchid on a traditional side table here, a piece of understated contemporary art there. We order both of the day’s set menus so that we can taste as many dishes as possible.

A few dainty nibbles whet our appetites. There’s a dark cone stuffed with chopped avocado, mango and tomato: it’s a snack we might be eating anywhere, except that the cone has been made of dried string lettuce, the delicious seaweed that’s a speciality of Ningbo in eastern China. A trio of small bites offers a nod to Buddhist vegetarian cooking: a sweet, glossy “spare rib” made of a plum impaled on a strip of lotus root; spiced tofu pressed into the form of a calabash gourd; and a bundle of Indian aster leaves wrapped in tofu skin. The soups are soft and tranquil: an intriguing walnut broth with longan and papaya, and a clear liquid with the floating pale lace of bamboo pith fungus.

Fu He Hui is the most recent venture from the team behind the notable Shanghai restaurants Fu1015, Fu1088 and Fu1039, and is under the stewardship of one of the city’s most outstanding chefs, Tony Lu. Last year it joined its sibling Fu1015 as one of the few Chinese restaurants in mainland China to make the San Pellegrino list of “Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants”, at Number 19.