Efes Restaurant

Since opening in early 2013, Efes has held onto a reputation as one of the few restaurants in Lujiazui run by a Turkish owner and head chef rather than adapting Turkish dishes through a local kitchen. That distinction shows in details diners often single out: meat documentation kept on hand at the restaurant, a head waiter who oversees service personally, and a menu built around Anatolian cooking rather than a broader, generic Middle Eastern spread.

Charcoal grilling anchors the kitchen, producing the mixed grill platters and kebabs that make up the bulk of the menu, alongside mezze plates for sharing before the mains arrive. The restaurant leans toward Mediterranean and Persian influences at the edges of its core Turkish repertoire, giving the menu more range than a single-cuisine grill house. Reviewers describe the food as fresh and well prepared, with pricing that runs higher than Shanghai's more casual Turkish and Middle Eastern kitchens, a reflection of both the sourcing and the Lujiazui address.

Lujiazui is Shanghai's financial district, the cluster of towers on the eastern bank of the Huangpu River that includes the Oriental Pearl Tower and the city's tallest skyscrapers, and Efes sits within that business heavy neighbourhood rather than in one of Shanghai's older restaurant enclaves. That location shapes its clientele, a mix of finance workers on lunch breaks and diners making a specific trip for dinner, and gives the restaurant a cleaner, more polished dining room than the noodle shops and canteens found in Shanghai's older Muslim quarters. The space is non-smoking throughout, with a straightforward, functional layout rather than an elaborately themed interior, letting the kitchen's cooking carry the experience rather than the surroundings.

More than a decade in the same Pudong address has given Efes a settled position among Shanghai's small number of Turkish restaurants, most of which cluster in the older, more residential districts across the river. Being one of the few options of its kind on the Pudong side means it draws diners who work or live in the financial district and would otherwise cross the Huangpu for a similar meal, a convenience that has helped the restaurant build a following independent of any particular dish. The consistency of ownership and kitchen staff since opening has also meant fewer of the menu shifts and recipe changes that affect restaurants that turn over chefs more frequently.