Fairmont Peace Hotel

No building tells the story of cosmopolitan old Shanghai like the Peace Hotel. Built by tycoon Sir Victor Sassoon and opened in 1929 as the Cathay Hotel, its granite tower and green copper pyramid roof crowned the Bund at the height of the city's jazz-age boom, hosting the likes of Noël Coward, who wrote Private Lives while staying here. After decades of state ownership and a meticulous restoration completed in 2010, it operates under Fairmont stewardship as a living museum of Art Deco craft.

The public spaces are the treasure: the octagonal atrium with its stained-glass dome, Lalique-style glasswork, the Dragon Phoenix restaurant's carved ceilings and the famous Nine Nations suites, each decorated in the style of a different country as they were in Sassoon's day. Rooms elsewhere are comfortable and classically dressed, though architecture rather than plumbing is the reason to book.

Evenings belong to the Jazz Bar, where the Old Jazz Band—an institution whose veteran musicians have played standards here for decades—performs nightly to a room that spans honeymooners and nostalgic locals. The Bund promenade begins at the door, Nanjing Road's lights at the corner. For romantics and history-minded travellers, this is Shanghai's essential address.