Cafe Zarah

Cafe Zarah is the king of all Gulou cafes -- no small feat considering that it's a neighborhood full of them. Basically, when you move into Gulou, they just give you a cafe right off the bat as like a signer's incentive. They just give you one for free. That and a free Bob Dylan poster to hang on the wall. And a curated Velvet Underground playlist. 

But Cafe Zarah yeah... let's see... Cafe Zarah combines a hip minimalist concrete industrial space with carefully home-spun Euro cafe fare. A few months back, they shuttered the venue up and underwent some pretty expansive renovations, thereby launching this massive diaspora of Macbook owners who wandered off vaguely in the direction of Alba and Amilal. They opened back up just a few weeks ago, and the diaspora's been wandering back since. 

For renovations, they opened up the courtyard in the back and redid the surrounding rooftop space overlooking said courtyard. It's still a skeleton of what it purportedly will become, but, goddamn, it's looking pretty beautiful. It manages to be coolly modern-ish and minimal, while at the same time offering a peaceful and airy natural environment. Fresh coat of paint on all that Gulou history. It's 2014, let's do this. 

Currently, they're hosting a soft launch menu, which is a very paired down selection of European cafe standards: a few snacks, sandwiches, salads, pastas, deserts, variations on continental breakfast, juice, coffee, wine, and cocktails. There's definitely room to expand on that though if they can get the service and kitchen in gear. It's this beautiful and large outdoor space now, just crying out for someone to create some sort of classy, classy, classy pan-Euro-Mediterranean-Asian high-end restaurant & cocktail bar out of it's hitherto humble cafe focus. 

Atmosphere: Cool and sunny concrete cafe by day, intimate, flickering candles and shadows at night. As I say, the renovations are still an ongoing thing -- looks like they're planning a 20-year slow burn on that front -- but despite how bare it all is, it's a pretty big range in terms of atmosphere. It's a decent enough snacks, wifi, and coffee space in the daytime, and it's still chic, chic, chic enough to make you feel like your out doing wonderful things if you're drinking alcohol there at night. 

But, yeah, the courtyard and roof are pretty bitchin' as far as those go...

Damage: Sort of cheap but sort of not really. The menu relies heavily on imports across the board and it's reflected in prices at the higher end. Coffee 25rmb to 45rmb. Iced coffee 38rmb. Salad, 35rmb to 50rmb. Pasta, 45rmb. Sandwiches, 50rmb. Breakfast, 45 to 95rmb. Wine at 35 or 50rmb a glass.