Shanghai Restaurant Review: De Carbon Bar

By Betty Richardson

The Place

From the creators of Opposite, culinary adventurers Jenson Pei and Kevin Hu, is De Carbon, a buzzy restaurant and bar specializing in barbecue. 

Tucked into 688 Square just off Nanjing Xi Lu, the location already makes us nervous; it’s a notorious restaurant graveyard for previous ventures (anyone remember Sweet & Sour?). Nevertheless, we walk in to a place teeming with upwardly mobile post-90s babies drinking pretty cocktails, so we’re ready to be proven wrong. 

The Food

The menu is a mishmash of dishes that sit under a vague umbrella of things that have been grilled, or have the suggestion of being so. One of the most ordered dishes, according to our extremely likeable Taiwanese waiter, are the deep-fried chicken wings (RMB48), which are colored pitch black for no good reason other than to play games with your mind. 

They say there’s a profound psychological impact linked to food color, which is pretty obvious when you consider short-lived experiments like Pepsi Blue, or Heinz’s Blastin’ Green Ketchup. Confronted with black chicken wings you’d expect the experience to be akin to what they look like: bitter and acrid charcoal turds. But surprisingly, they are mild and almost completely free of flavor. 

A gaggle of stressed out-looking octopus tendrils (RMB68) were a more aggressive attempt, tipping over the fine line of intriguingly smoky to burned-tasting and violently overcooked. Our party made awkward eye contact with each other as we silently chewed our way through the toughness. 

Grilled corn with spicy shoyu koji and pesto (RMB38) was one of the better dishes that we tried. Did it need flower petals on top that have to be peeled off before eating? Maybe not.

Main courses were a further waste of stomach space. Charcoal grill spaghetti with dark garlic oil, mullet roe, truffle paste and onsen egg (RMB98) tasted like the sort of thing we used to cook ourselves as students: not much. Frankly, for nearly a hundred kuai you can walk into any Italian restaurant in town and buy yourself an immeasurably better bowl of pasta. 

The Mulard duck breast with a leg confit and ‘jalapeno chimichurri’ that turned out to be mint sauce (RMB198) was doused in alcohol before being set alight, a coup de gras for what was already an overcooked piece of meat. 

Food Verdict: 0.5/3

The Vibe

We usually try to find something nice to say about every restaurant we visit, and in the case of De Carbon, it’s that the cocktails are good and that the service is really friendly. However, that’s not enough to make us want to visit again. We know Jenson and Hu are capable of better at their first restaurant, Opposite, but at De Carbon they need to go back to the barbecue to rework these dishes. 

Vibe Verdict: 1/2 

Total Verdict: 1.5/5

Price: RMB200-350 per person

Who's going: mainly locals

Good for: cocktails, those avoiding overeating

De Carbon Bar, No. 104, 688 Square, 688 Nanjing Xi Lu, by Fengyang Lu 南京西路688号104单元，近凤阳路

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