Walk Yongfu Road from beginning to end for ten minutes.
Under the cover of French plane trees, mansions, apartments, new public houses are lined up one after another, if you study carefully, each building has a head, Yongfuhui is located at No. 200 Yongfu Road, since the 1980s as the seat of the British consulate, in 2001 China's first generation of Chinese costume designer Wang Xingzheng began to rebuild. In the following three years, Mr. Wang made a bold move, cutting this 30s Spanish-style building and the 1,800 ping garden garden like a garment to create a unique space for the integration of east and west, starting from stepping into the gate of Yongfu Road, entering along the wall of the five courtyards on the right hand side, until the "Jude Hall" plaque, through the sound of water flowing and the sound of summer cicadas, pushing the door to enter, the atmosphere around him has the illusion of time conversion, and I can't help but ask, which time and space is Shanghai?
Yongfuhui outdoor scenery.
"The lobby on the second floor has a round table in the corner, the window is all magnolia trees, the hall is a purple wall, with an antique dresser, I was alone that day, the whole space is very quiet, I feel that it is a scene in Zhang Ailing's novel, when looking out the window, it seems that Ge Weilong, aunt and Ge Qiqi Qiao they are going to have a party in the garden, there will be this illusion."
It was an ordinary day in the Yongfu Society, and there was a person who was always looking at the corners and corners of this place, as if to see through this place, if she aimed at the target, she picked up the film camera in her hand, clicked, pressed the shutter, and then the scene became eternal.
Yongfuhui first floor hall.
Born in fudan journalism, Hu Yanyun did not devote himself to the news media, but instead became HR, one coincidentally got a camera and became a space photographer, and another coincidence was an encounter with Yongfuhui.
Two years ago, Hu Yanyun was commissioned for the first time to shoot its 8 boxes for yongfuhui, and in order to find inspiration, the day before, she watched Wong Kar-wai's "A Generation of Grandmasters" three times. "The design of each room is adjusted by Mr. Wang himself, if you look at it carefully, none of the 8 boxes are repetitive, and the objects on display are unified with the entire theme, once you enter this box, it will have a sense of story."
Hu Yanyun quickly decided that the historical precipitation of the entire restaurant matched the texture of the film, and that she could only shoot one box a day, which meant that she had to go to 8 boxes eight times. She feels like a traveler, and every time she enters a box, it's a new journey, "there are 8 people waiting for me to talk to that feeling."
Hu Yanyun photographed the Yongfuhui box.
Color is Hu Yanyun's first memory point for the Yongfuhui. The observation and female intuition acquired in the journalism department became more and more acute in front of the camera, and in her mind, there was a detailed Yongfuhui.
"No Michelin restaurant is open early in the morning during the day, I just came during the day and waited for the light. Each spatial color of Yongfuhui has its own characteristics, and at first glance you will feel that it is the old feeling of the typical ocean house, in fact, every place can be deeply investigated. Some of the walls of the boxes are three-dimensional undulating, with one piece of white being lighter and one piece being darker. The velvet texture of the seats is very compatible with the wood in the room, and once out of the living room, the wall changes scenes again, and it keeps changing. In the lobby on the first floor, the interior is pasted with silver foil, and this reflection is not artificial light or can be adjusted later, because it is the luster of real silver. The Italian handmade lamps in the Caixiang Bookstore have different colors and different materials, and they are placed inside just to match the green and red walls, the wooden floor, and the brown sofa. Mr. Wang is a student of clothing, his collocations are particularly interesting, and he is constantly seeking a little new changes, architectural installations, contemporary art..."
Cai xiang book house.
Hu Yanyun has never photographed such a place, after she removed all the functional things, leaving the true face of the Yongfuhui, she racked her brains to think about how to find the angle, but it is not like the ordinary space photographer's flat direct narrative, which may be the benefit of the non-science class, she relies on her own way to get along with here, immersion, and then immersion, as if a secret conversation: What kind of guests have come here? What kind of conversations have taken place? What kind of nights did they spend?
"It's a place to eat, but it's not just about eating, each box presents a different rhythm. Space is also the equivalent of a vessel to carry its food. ”
After shooting 8 boxes, naturally, the courtyard shooting of yongfuhui was also entrusted to Hu Yanyun. Originally a Western-style garden, under Mr. Wang's oriental gardening concept, it has become an oriental garden, with twists and turns, exquisite elegance, natural and vigorous, centuries-old trees and new grass buds are interesting, seemingly allowing them to stretch freely, but in fact, they are carefully taken care of everywhere.
Willow trees with garden feng shui walls.
"How to Write a Sentence" writes: "A meticulously crafted style, polished and cut to transparency." It seems to be only the point to the end, not sensationalism. It longs for the gradual disappearance of the self, and the subject shines through itself. "If everything that started was deliberate, then in the past 18 years, the Yongfuhui has already had its own vitality, it is connected to this land, and it has begun to speak for itself.
"If you go in April, the hydrangea blossoms bloom and the wood fragrance will pour down like a waterfall." Hu Yanyun was familiar with the grass and trees in the garden, "When the willow tree just sprouted, it was a completely tender yellow spring scene; When I look at it in the summer, it has become all green, the branches and leaves are very thin, and the state of the weeping willows is different; Winter in Shanghai is really very cold, and the water of the Sandian Spring has formed icicles. There is a large green brick wall outside the secret training bar, which was completely covered by dense plants for a while, Mr. Wang asked a master to comb through, and the old bricks and stone bricks were revealed, very Jiangnan, and a painting was formed with vines, bamboo, melon seeds and boxwood..."
The wood fragrance pours down like a waterfall.
The "Six Arts Hall" in the garden was completely relocated from the large wooden mansion hall of the middle Qing Dynasty in Dongyang, Zhejiang Province, and the inscription yang Yi was a late Qing Dynasty Minchuju and a Haipai calligrapher and painter. Along the long corridor with the plaque slowly unfolding, connecting the secret training bar and the Caixiang Book House, in the middle is the vermilion lacquer house", the sides are cast with gold leaf, and the outside is like a hidden wall, which is favored by magazines, and many covers are filmed here.
"Nan wood carved wooden beams on the Six Arts Hall, when it rains, the rain falls from the eaves drop by drop, sitting on the balcony, looking at this scene, you will have a great feeling, you can do anything here, a chamber music quartet, a Kunqu performance, a modern dance, you can." Hu Yanyun suggested that he should go to Yongfuhui to see it on a rainy day, and there would be a different scene.
Above: The "Six Arts Hall" in the garden.
Below: Nan wood carved wooden beams on the LiuYi Hall.
"It's really like the living room study of the Haipai literati, or a garden, you can not just come to have a meal, Hemingway kept writing in the café, if you are a professor, a opera lover, an artist, a designer, you can just observe its space, the state of the garden, there may be a lot of inspiration." 」 I myself am a Shanghainese, and I feel that as a Shanghai restaurant, it really has to be the representative of China's Michelin-style restaurants, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, integrated. ”
In Hu Yanyun's film, the hustle and bustle fades, and Yongfuhui exudes a gentle and elegant charm, showing her relationship with those spaces, and the subtleties reveal a nameless silence, like a frame of the movie.
"Film can give a little deeper power to time, because the picture is locked on a negative, it is a very timeless thing, not a bunch of digital signals, a negative itself is a historical record."
Mr. Wang is like a time-space receiver, and if he is waiting for the viewer, then Hu Yanyun is one of the admirers. And she is also waiting, waiting for the light, waiting for the four seasons, waiting for time to continue to rub out the appearance of the Yongfuhui.
In the sunshine house on the second floor of the Yongfuhui, the seat on the innermost side is the old seat where Li Jin and his family come to dine every time, and when Mr. Yoshihiko Ueda came to Shanghai to shoot a Suntory advertisement, he specially asked for this venue, perhaps there is an oriental charm he wants to find in Shanghai.
"It's the same every time I come here." Li Jin ordered a glass of American style from the waiter and looked at the garden outside the glass window, "Every time I come here, I think it is beautiful, because I am too familiar with this place, whether it is with family and friends, it is not a special arrangement." ”
The sun room on the second floor of yongfuhui.
Yongfuhui's coffee, of course, is not the same as the fashionable cafes in Shanghai now, there are not so many gimmicks, there are two sugar cubes on the cups and plates, and there must be a glass of water brought together, the same posture as in the old European cafes.
Li Jin, a northern girl who worked as a media person on the Central Television more than a decade ago, moved from Beijing to Shanghai and came to Yongfuhui under the introduction of her boyfriend at the time, who is now her husband.
"Yongfuhui is a newly improved Shanghainese dish, and the soy sauce is very exquisite, so every time you come, you will definitely come to try its main dish, such as Pu'er tea braised pork, and they can make an ordinary home-cooked dish very different."
In addition to dining, Li Jin is also attracted by the activities designed for members here, and Yongfuhui is one of the few league clubs in China by IAC (International Associate Clubs). "I was young at the time, and there were a lot of member salons here, and I thought their activities were very interesting." "For example, they would invite the owner of a certain winery to a wine tasting, which was very rare at the time," she recalls. ”
The English name of Yongfoo Élite, YongFoo and Yongfu are harmonized, and Élite is the elite. As a first-generation Chinese fashion designer, Mr. Wang achieved commercial success early on, and his spiritual space expanded from clothing fabrics to physical space, an avid collector and creator who used catering as a medium to project his love of interior design to the fresh wall room restaurant, The Door bar, and finally to Yongfuhui, the master of all his collection and design inspiration. Since then, international luxury celebrities have come one by one, and entering and leaving here seems to have become a business card of the high society at that time.
"I feel that this is the Shanghai of a movie, the people who come here, the atmosphere here, and its style, is the Shanghai you can imagine in the novel." 」
Common area of Yongfuhui Restaurant.
For Li Jin, for the appearance of Shanghai and the feelings of Shanghai culture, Yongfuhui seems to be a window of snooping, a condensed silhouette.
"Haipai culture is a very thick and inclusive thing, which can be said to be the oriental culture of the world. I often have the opportunity to see some photos of Shanghai families in the 1930s and 1940s, when the elegance and temperament of Shanghai women I think are more beautiful than anyone else in the world. ”
As the initiator of the Soong Ching Ling Children's Reading Room Project, it seems natural to use this place as a reading club, she has invited Xu Jingcan, director of the Shanghai Old Qipao Museum and a descendant of Gu Weijun's Yan Youyun family, to tell her family story, and has also invited Wang Xiaoyin, a famous art educator and associate professor of the School of Fine Arts of Shanghai Normal University, to discuss the beauty of women in Chinese and Western art... From a young girl to getting married and having children, from the audience who originally lingered in the Yongfuhui Salon to becoming the co-organizer of the salon, for more than ten years, the Yongfuhui seems to have witnessed every transformation of Li Jin.
Li Jin's Yongfuhui has changed from the Shanghai in the movie to the daily Shanghai.
"There are too many places to go in Shanghai now, whether it is to create a Shanghai culture, to create internationalization, there are too many things with a sense of high-end." There are some things here, some people say it has not improved, I think it is very good, occasionally out of the new menu, it actually has a lot of innovation, there are new salons, there are some special personality music, not every salon I can accept, but it itself has always been something. ”
"There are still Yongfuhui." Li Jin took the last sip of coffee, "This kind of Haipai style temperament, this may be the reason why I still make it a part of my life." ”
100 years of magnolia.
Looking around, the light in the sun room is transparent, the century-old magnolia outside the window has passed its flowering period, and in today's rapid iteration of the city, the existence of the Yongfuhui seems to be a relief.
"Why do you have to change?" She got up and went downstairs with her husband, who was waiting in his old seat for the end of her interview.
At night, Yongfu will change its appearance.
Follow the faint candlelight of the path at the entrance of Yongfu Road, do not enter the main building of the "Jude Tang" restaurant, turn left and go directly through the garden to reach the "secret training".
Dim lights, theater-like draperies, a tree attached to the sky but dead itself dramatically occupies the center of the bar, a foreign man is reading a book in his hand alone, the glass of wine on the table before I came has drunk a drop, he is wearing a British suspender pants, he may be a screenwriter or a reporter, he chose to leave before the noise, he may like the ambiguous atmosphere of losing the sense of time before the opening of the play, I heard that he is a regular.
Secret Training Bar.
Secret Training is a bar. Maybe you've heard some rumors that the Frenchman Son Goku mixed wine, and in addition to bartending, he was also a poet, writer and surf instructor. "Lori" is a cocktail named after the hostess of the Yongfuhui, and "Weiwei" is inspired by the artistic director of the Yongfuhui, Weiwei, the two genius girlfriends who make this Place, which has been crowned by Michelin, less conformist and even elusive.
There's always some magic in this place, gathering some idealists—the title page of the wine list reads: "I don't know if you've ever read Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf," and as the protagonist walks through the old town of a strange town, he sees a sign that reads "Theater of Magic, which is not suitable for everyone." There is a door under the signboard, but it can't be opened. I've always wanted to have a bar like the Magic Theater, and that's where the secret training originated.
When Wendy pushed open this door, her life was experiencing some turbulence - she witnessed the golden age of Chinese media, and through her status as an international publication, she could "open an artist's private house at will", go to the world's best art museums, sleep in the world's best hotels... While enjoying this abundance and beauty, she often felt that she was in a state of screwing, "When the material flourishes, there is a piece of something that is missing, and my desire for something deeper in this mental state has never disappeared." ”
She resigned, and in the spring of 2019, she moved from Beijing, where she had lived for 10 years, to Shanghai, where she closed for a year and wrote novels. "Dreams are talking to dead writers, hemingway, Whitman, or something, in fact, very happy."
"Choosing a small cave in Shanghai, a small cave, is a kind of self-exile, better than banishing yourself to a village, where you may have to deal with different people every day, and they will not let you go." It is okay to be in the city, and I have friends who live in seclusion in Shanghai. She suddenly remembered a quote by Simone Weil, "The banishment of others is the worst of all crimes, and the exile of oneself is the greatest of all achievements." ”
A year later, the novel had not been published, and she wanted to get out of the cave and see how the world was. She met a group of Westerners who worked in an independent magazine of poetry in Shanghai, and in that WeChat group she met Jonathan Mulcahy, a poet from Wales, who took her to a Secret Training Session on Tuesday Night, the Losers Club. Isn't that just me? Wendy laughed.
The green brick wall outside the secret training.
"They say that Tuesday is usually the worst time in the bar business, just do a little art activity, anyway, you can let these poor artists play, so Tuesday is a hodgepodge, an open stage, whether you do folk music, world music, or noise, and body performances, performance art, poetry... Regardless of category, the music director of Yongfuhui at that time would tune all the music equipment for everyone, as you want to play. ”
"Remember the first time you went in?" I asked.
"I think anyone who goes in for the first time will think it's a very charming bar, the whole is very cinematic, the sense of the movie scene, those long oval glass, the deep drapery, including the dead tree on the other side of the bar, and when I went recently, I found that there were a lot of green leaves growing around the tree, and if I didn't look closely, I thought it was the old tree that had sprouted new shoots. I read poems with these people, and I can't remember what I was reading that day. ”
A bar like the "Magic Theater," as its owner had expected, wendy became a regular visitor to the secret training many Tuesday nights after opening that door, and she liked that it was less "Shanghai" and a bit utopian. "Where art is fun, it should be to break boundaries and break boundaries." For Wendy, the secret training is a place to break boundaries.
Sculpt time concert.
"When I tell a lot of people, it means that there will be a Losersclub in Yongfu, and they say if you're kidding, it's a Michelin restaurant, it's a very high-class place."
"It's the winner's club."
"Yes, they say you are simply Versailles, but when I went I found that those artist friends were particularly down to earth, of course, for poor artists, alcohol is not cheap, but there is no pressure to consume, I think it is creating an artistic atmosphere, of course, you will also meet a big coffee like Liu Xiangcheng in Loserclub, everything is possible." 」
Then wednesday, "Wednesday is movie night, and movie night is watching an open-air movie in the garden, satisfying another fantasy of romance." I played a movie there, Fellini's Amarcord, and there were so many people sitting in the garden that day, and it was pleasing to the fact that there were still a lot of literary lovers. ”
Perform the modern dance "Species" in the courtyard.
Then the people Wendy knew in the secret training began to become friends and partners in the creation together, and she looked back at the encounters on those Tuesdays one by one, and her heart was surging as if it were yesterday.
"Once I deliberately prepared a script of more than ten pages to read, and as a result, I felt that I didn't read it well, and I thought that I might still take myself too seriously, and you hoped that when you were performing, others could put their attention on you a little, but maybe because you were acting very generally, people may not pay attention to you, but at that time you will feel a little frustrated inside." 」 There was a guy standing at the bar, he thought we were pretty good, and then I learned that he was a regular at the bar, not only a regular, but also a very senior musician, his name was Borkin, and he was now the music director of a stage play we were working on. ”
"Another time was a Jam session on Tuesday, that is, you have to grab the wheat to get your turn, you have to take the initiative to perform, I found that I couldn't do it at all, because I didn't dare to grab the wheat at all, and I didn't express it, but at one event there was an American Korean artist Jared Mimm pulling me, he said you perform with me, I said joking, I never performed, he said you can, so he participated in one of his improvisational performances. He is now the male lead of my stage plays, and I have worked with him on several art short films. ”
Wendy began to meet different people, read her poems in public, performed, and did things she had never thought of—break boundary—from isolation to social ecstasy, she had a mindset that returned to the kind of mentality she had when she first started doing media. A new idea came into being, she always believed that poetry should not be buried, she wanted to do a project that combined poetry music and imagery, in a new way to convey poetry, so that more people can hear.
"I also met a boy named Luche, and I found that he also liked movies, and he was an independent musician himself, and the idea hit it off, and the art platform of 'two people pushing stones' came out, and we started doing poetry, music, and movies. If art must be in an art museum, I think it is not so interesting, Yongfuhui still has a lot of unconventional things, but it is because of this unconventionality that I find it particularly charming, you see they continue to let this wild artist to create, of course, experimental at the same time, but also grasp the musicality. ”
The definition of success and failure blurs the boundary in this space, perhaps there are no winners in this world, there are no losers, only people who believe in life and people who do not believe in life.
As a poet—Wendy now dares to call herself that—she wrote Losersclub's encounter into a poem, The Lost Poet, The Lost Poet.
Tuesday Losers Club，
She only came to this bar on Tuesdays.
Why are you here?
I have to look for those who fail in my kind...
What are you looking for?
I was looking for a lost voice, a poet's voice.
Did you find it?
……
I greedily sucked the blazing fragrance of flowers wafting from the rotten garbage heap at three o'clock in the morning.
So, is it depraved?
No, it longs for the noble —
Self-exile.
Wendy continues to perform experimentally in various places, in theaters, exhibition spaces, and bars, "My origin is here, the spirit of Losersclub has always been in my body, I can perform anywhere, there are no boundaries." 」 I feel lucky to be able to do what I love. ”
"Is that the deeper thing you once missed?"
Wendy, who was sitting opposite, narrowed his eyes and smiled and nodded.
Goodbye Wendy, she changed the Rock style of the past and wore an elegant little black dress.
We met in the hall on the first floor of the Yongfuhui, and waiting for us was the latest summer menu launched by the Yongfuhui, who invited Liu Chang, a Noma intern, a sous chef who was to be Tokuyoshi, and the winner of the 2016 Saint Peilu Young Chef Competition in China and a Yangzhou chef who has worked in Italy for 15 years.
Chef Liu Chang.
Wendy has never eaten a good Meal of Shanghainese cuisine, and our knowledge of this dish is almost zero, and we both think that using a Michelin restaurant as a starting point is too high - a happy accident among many accidents in life.
Our senses are stirring and we start exploring.
The taste of Shanghai unfolds in a way that has never been seen before, starting with the summer scent of hors d'oeuvres, pearls drunk with Hokkaido sweet shrimp, bad foie gras air ⻢ka⻰ with vinegar-stained shallots, dill yogurt and ginger crisps, and walnut soy milk sandwich cabbage crisps, just by looking at the names of these ingredients, it is very beautiful;
Then the combination of Panchino and Oil Pier inspired by Shanghai Oil Pier, with Shanghai Smoked ⻥inspired by Dochun⻥, Chef Liu Chang personally came from the back kitchen to make a magic seaweed and smoked pine needle foam, placing the foam above the polyamorous fish to let the seaweed juice drip naturally, as if an art installation was full of fun;
Eight treasures of pigeons.
The novelty is dazzling, and the surprise continues: saffron and old hen soup with flower glue, hairy crab yellow topping potato shreds, Shanghai egg dumplings with fresh abalone clear soup, A5 wagyu beef and Shanghai rice, Shanghai Eight Treasure Duck with pigeon ⻣ old duck nine hours of sauce, and finally ended with a perilla peach smoothie, soy sauce caramel ice cream, four small desserts - macaron's magnolia syrup in dessert is chef Liu Chang in the yard with that century-old magnolia flower.
From Yangzhou, Italy, Northern Europe, France and Japan, chef Liu Chang has broadened the boundaries of his own cuisine with his travels and techniques, and this familiarity and strangeness, conflict and collision seem to be the only place where it can happen.
A5 and beef rice.
After dinner, Wendy couldn't wait to head to the Caixiang Bookstore, where the first event after quarantine would be held. The sound is plugged in, the music is playing, the human voices are boiling, the "ruined" walls, the bare beams, everything looks so grotesque and conflicting, and so harmonious and embraced... Just like this confusing era.
Young faces were either lying on the 1960 GUCCI couch with their ears furrowed or sitting on the grass mat in the front row listening, and everyone was glowing. How will their story continue here?
Improvisation by musicians.
Oh yes, it was supposed to be an ambient music night, and the encounter between the three musicians turned into an improvisation.
Wendy met many acquaintances and was in the garden discussing her next shooting plans. The couple of architects who live nearby returned home early. Before midnight, chef Liu Chang rushed to get the nucleic acid.
In a few hours, the sun will rise again, illuminating every innocent person.
Author: Da Tao
Editor: Anya Zhang
Typography: Wang Zihan
Illustrated courtesy of the brand