Huangpu Hustle
Behind Shanghai’s celebrated skyline, China’s most cosmopolitan city is setting the pace in hospitality, fashion, art and design.
Sinophiles may recall the financially coded language of the 2010s we used to talk about Shanghai—size and scale were familiar refrains. Once reduced to “the economic centrepiece” of modern China, or the country’s second-largest city, the character of Shanghai today is vastly richer than the average corporate traveller may care to comprehend.
Sluggish demand for luxury megabrands, whose post-pandemic struggles in Mainland China are well-documented, has opened the door to more nuanced and discreet strains of retail. Colossal Western flagships—in the mould of Louis Vuitton’s nautically inspired ‘Louis’—must now contend with independent operators weaving together fashion and lifestyle goods with a painterly sensibility. Many of the most important players have taken up residence in the former French Concession, turning a remnant of Shanghai’s colonial past over to a new project of dynamic experiential retail—imbued with an echo of place and culturally specific perspective.
All this is to say that, for sophisticated Australian travellers, 2026 is an opportune moment to swap the usual Singapore or Hong Kong stopover in favour of China’s most cosmopolitan megacity. And as a holiday destination in its own right, the logistics of daily life in Shanghai offer much that is commendable—provided you’re game for a little advance planning.
An expansive metro system, along with literally hundreds of thousands of rideshare vehicles (mostly electrified) make getting about a breeze. For international visitors, the arrival process is similarly straightforward, with Australian passport holders able to enter Shanghai for up to 30 days visa-free, until the end of 2026. That’s just one more way the city is saying welcome—or “huan ying”—to those in town for business, leisure, or some medley of the two.
STAY
The Peninsula, North Bund
Since its arrival in 2009, the historic waterfront’s first new-build in over 70 years, The Peninsula Shanghai has become a singular destination—separate from, yet complementing its Grande Dame sibling in Hong Kong. The Kadoories, who founded the Peninsula hotels in the 1920s, famously went hands-on for the creation of this property. That effort has manifested into lavish private and public spaces, glossed with a touch of Streamline Moderne.
Guestrooms feature hand-painted wallpaper and walk-in wardrobes the size of the average study. In the lobby—every Peninsula’s gravitational centre—Doric columns and Art-Deco murals frame the action: a medley of well-heeled families, executive travellers, and Shanghainese locals ducking in for the signature afternoon tea. Yi Long Court, the Pen’s Michelin-starred temple to Cantonese cuisine, is worth staying in-house for—improved only by the addition of cocktails on the rooftop, in the company of glittering panoramas across the Huangpu. Guests keen on urban exploration also have a contingent of Rolls-Royce Phantoms at their disposal. Liveried in the bespoke brewster green colourway, they’re a peerless way to navigate all that Shanghai has to offer.
Upper House, Jingan
Swire Properties’ signature Shanghai abode remains a go-to option for the city’s art and fashion set. Practically joined at the hip to the nearby Taikoo Hui shopping precinct, the hotel boasts excellent connectivity to most of Shanghai’s cultural hotspots. People’s Park and Xintiandi are both a mere 10-minute drive away.
In line with other hotels in the ‘House’ collective, the atmosphere here is best described as “style, borne from substance”. Clever spatial symmetries and recurring use of heritage details, like lacquer and local porcelain, lend the impression of a modern-day Shanghainese manor.
That isn’t to say that Upper House lacks for visual drama. Italian architect Piero Lissoni’s public spaces quietly command your attention: ranging from the hotel’s bamboo forest-inspired lobby to an internal spiral staircase cocooned in timber and brass.
Be sure to leave space in your daily itinerary for a trip to Mi Xun: the hotel’s “urban wellness destination” which fuses together gym, pool, and spa facilities in a serenely lit underground space.
DINE
Selection by Du, North Bund
Perched on the 56th storey of Raffles City West, with blockbuster views of the Pudong skyline, Selection by Du is the sort of joint that could easily dine on the bombast of its setting. Shanghai’s fiercely competitive restaurant scene ensures it does not.
Probably the most refined (not to mention personal) expression of Chinese cooking offered by chef-restaurateur Du Jianqing, Selection’s specialty is the food of Chaoshan—a regionality of Cantonese cooking even more laser-focused on balance, freshness, and pursuit of natural flavours.
In East Asia, Du is already a chef with a vaunted pedigree; having previously been awarded three ‘Diamonds’ by the Black Pearl Guide, China’s answer to Michelin. At Selection, his affinity for traditional Chaoshan preparations is reimagined with global influences.
Premium dried foodstuffs, such as fish maw or sea cucumber, are transformed into slinky little entrees—a creative counterpoint to more classical preparations like Du’s hometown comforter of puning tofu in chicken soup. The restaurant’s wine list goes big on Burgundian Grand Cru (predictably) but, in line with restaurants in Shanghai of this calibre, a master tea sommelier can also organise compelling non-alcoholic pairings.
Yong Fu, Hongkou
While the food of Shanghai proper (benbang cuisine) has a reputation for rich, red-braised, somewhat boozy fare, many now-locals trace their ancestry to Ningbo, a provincial city one hour south by train. At Michelin-starred Yong Fu, the menu is influenced largely by the latter.
The restaurant’s first location opened in 2011, in the former French Concession, and since then has been joined by two more comparatively opulent outposts, including this lofted branch in the office-dense district of Hongkou. But don’t expect a chain restaurant à la Hakkasan.
Ningbo’s shallow coastal waters mean the city’s signature recipes invariably involve seafood. Here, preparations are delicate and labour-intensive: such as a sweetpea stew of ‘meatballs’, made by deboning then finely mincing yellow croaker fish.
Another must-order, particularly for shellfish lovers, is the ’18-cut’ crab: local swimmer crustaceans that are cleaned, flash-frozen, and marinated in yellow wine. Served raw and chilled, they are best enjoyed with a glass of the sherry-esque Chinese rice wine, huadiao, or a bottle of champagne from Yong Fu’s extensive cellar.
DRINK
Bar Leone, Former French Concession
After securing the #1 spot at the ‘Asia’s 50 Best’ bar awards two years running, there was much ado about where—beyond Hong Kong—Bar Leone would look to establish a second, similarly enticing foothold. For co-founders Justin Shun Wah and Lorenzo Antinori, Shanghai was the logical progression: offering a bigger, more ambitious canvas upon which to tell the story of “timeless Italian drinking culture”. Secreted in a two-storey townhouse within the historic Sinan Mansions, The Godfather Part II-esque scale of Leone’s second outpost is revealed in small details as much as square footage. Whereas service in Hong Kong revolves around a single freezer drawer; here, Leone’s bartenders have four at their disposal—a key building block in the americanos and olive oil sours that patrons queue around the block for. The bar also makes the most of its mainland location with a number of food and beverage exclusives you won’t find in Hong Kong. For a forgotten tequila classic, try the Matador (best enjoyed with a platter of moreish, deep-fried baby shrimp) or a Gin Pepper Rickey—Leone Shanghai’s riff on the refreshing highball serve of the same name.
Condé, Hongkou
Sprawled across the fifth floor of the newly opened Regent Shanghai on the Bund—itself a remarkably contemporary hotel, adjacent to the famous Waibaidu bridge—Condé doubles as both a signature restaurant and cocktail bar.
Thanks to the context in which the wider hotel is situated; over drinks, guests are able to enjoy the twin skylines of Pudong and Puxi functionally in a single vista, with historic architecture on one side and Shanghai’s cyberpunk spires on the other.
An undulating terrace, built around flow of light and refractive curved surfaces, makes for the ideal backdrop come happy hour. Inventive cocktails like the Editorial Office (made with raspberry Bourbon) are inspired by themes of visual spectacle and “authentic flavours of a bygone Shanghai”.
SHOP
Maison Dongliang, Changning
A kind of spiritual homecoming for veteran fashion entrepreneur Charles Wang—whose team is also behind local designer incubator, Labelhood—Maison Dongliang has emerged as the destination that retail sophisticates make the trek to Shanghai for.
This independent concept store, consisting of two adjoining villas decorated in the haipai aesthetic, embraces plane trees and the Sino-European architecture of old Shanghai. The resulting atmosphere is one where shoppers are encouraged to linger, immersing themselves in experiences that nicely complement the Dongliang brand roster.
Venerable maisons like Alaïa and Dries Van Noten sit alongside gritty urban fare from Our Legacy, though each gets a chance to visually shine inside Dongliang’s considered residential setting. After an afternoon of laidback browsing, conclude your visit with a cup of the tea from Qishan (the store’s in-house cafe) amid the verdant internal garden.
La Maison by The Anthology, Xuhui
Much like Bar Leone, The Anthology’s latest retail outpost brings a celebrated Hong Kong brand into the thick of the Chinese market, on a leafy boulevard in the former French Concession—a fitting setting for a classic menswear label that tempers serious craft with “youthfulness and creative flair”.
Compared to its existing shopfronts in Taipei and Hong Kong, this is by far The Anthology’s most complete (not to mention, collaborative) offering. In a layout typical of high-end shopping in this part of Shanghai, the brand’s universe unfolds across multiple separate floors.
The ground-level Curator’s Gallery is the most conventional space: stocked with ready-to-wear garments and select accessories which are, as Co-founder Buzz Tang puts it, “in the orbit of our clients’ taste”. Upstairs, the second floor is home to the Shoe Salon, where The Anthology has joined forces with fine footwear retailer Tassels, to offer a comprehensive selection of classic British shoemaking. At the Maison’s apex (literal and otherwise), you’ll find The Attic, an intimate space reserved for shoppers looking to experience The Anthology’s custom-made tailoring. Soft, easy-wearing, and cut with a subtly extended shoulder, it’s an impressive proposition worn straight off the rack—but even better when ordered bespoke.
VISIT
Prada Rong Zhai Residence, Jingan
restaurant in Asia — designed in collaboration with filmmaker Wong Kar-wai.
Since its acquisition by the Prada Group more than a decade ago, Rong Zhai has become the eponymous Italian fashion giant’s flagship third space in China. A gallery, cultural salon, and multiple dining concepts all under one roof, it’s the ultimate paean to Miuccia Prada’s personal passion for Sino-European cultural exchange.
Originally built in the 1910s as the residence of a prominent local industrialist, Rong Zhai formally reopened to the public in 2017. This followed an exhaustive multi-year restoration, in which a combined force of Italian and Chinese craftspeople worked across the property’s major structural and interior aspects. Thankfully, much of Rong Zhai’s original plasterworks, metal fixtures and stained glass windows remain—blended with Italian art and furniture for an evocative Milan-meets-Shanghai aesthetic.
Last year, Rong Zhai received its most anticipated new standalone concept to date: Mi Shang, a fine dining restaurant specialising in Italo-Chinese cuisine, decorated in collaboration with Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai. The Chungking Express director lends his characteristically cinematic eye to a range of communal dining spaces. Start with an espresso on the terrace, before heading inside for pasta and vitello tonnato.
Rockbund Art Museum, North Bund
For more than a decade, Rockbund Art Museum has been the premier destination for contemporary art in central Shanghai. Situated inside an Art-Deco structure, initially built in 1932 for the Royal Asiatic Society, today it champions both emerging and established artists, focusing on those with practices that encompass multiple localities and cultures across Asia.
Until September, Chief Curator X Zhu-Nowell is presiding over a sprawling group exhibition — entitled Youth Palace — which references “socialist extracurricular” themes across work by more than 20 participating Vietnamese and international artists. The exhibition reimagines Rockbund’s five-storey installation space as a public learning centre (in the mould of the titular children’s ‘palace’).
Like all other exhibitions at the museum since 2025, admission is free. Jump the queues on weekends by making a booking via WeChat
Local Intel: Small tips that make a big difference.
For enthusiasts of Shanghainese street food, the delicate soup dumplings known as xiaolongbao are serious business. Institutions like Lai Lai Xiao Long and Jia Jia Tang Bao open all-day and are strictly walk-in—ideal as a snacky diversion from sightseeing. Visitors who are serious about uncovering Shanghai through its culinary history should swap Michelin stars for bilingual boots on the ground. Excellent private tour operators, like UnTour or Christopher St Cavish, abound across town, and are worth scheduling ahead of time. Compared with most Asian megacities, day-to-day interactions in Shanghai are uniquely efficient and friction-free—assuming you come prepared. We’d recommend downloading WeChat, DiDi, and AliPay prior to arrival: the messaging, rideshare, and electronic payment systems that deft China hands all know their way around.
This article appears in the Winter 2026 issue of Robb Report Australia & New Zealand. Click here to subscribe.
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Omega Just Unveiled 9 Watches in Its New Constellation Observatory Collection
The line-up shows up a bevy of metals and colours, too, as well as two new calibres.
Omega’s latest watch is in a universe of its own.
The Swiss watchmaker just unveiled its new Constellation Observatory Collection today, the next step in its Constellation lineage and the first two-hand hour and minute timepieces to ever earn Master Chronometer certification. And if you were paying attention to any of the dazzling watches spotted at the Oscars this year, you would’ve caught a glimpse of the new line already: Sinners star Delroy Lindo rocked one of the models on the Academy Awards red carpet, giving us a pre-release preview of the collection.
Developed at Omega’s new Laboratoire de Précision (its chronometer testing lab open to all brands), the collection houses a set of nine 39.4 mm watches. The watches underwent 25 days of scrutiny there, analysed via a new acoustic testing method that recorded every sound emitted from the timepiece to track irregularities, temperature sensitivities, and more in the name of all things precision. (Details such as water resistance and power reserve are also thoroughly examined.) This meticulous process is all in the name of snagging that Master Chronometer label, meaning that the timepiece is highly accurate and surpasses the threshold for ultra-high performance. The Constellation Observatory Collection has now changed the game, though, thanks to its lack of a seconds hand.
“Until now, precision certification has required a seconds hand,” Raynald Aeschlimann, president and CEO of OMEGA, said in a press statement. “The development of a new acoustic testing methodology has made that requirement obsolete. It is this breakthrough that has enabled us to present the Constellation Observatory, the first two-hand watch to achieve Master Chronometer certification.”
In addition to notching its place in history, the collection also debuted a new pair of movements: the Calibre 8915 and the Calibre 8914, each perched on a skeletonised rotor base. The former’s Grand Luxe iteration will appear on the 950 Platinum-Gold model in the collection, which offers up that base in 18-karat Sedna Gold alongside a Constellation medallion in 18-karat white gold with an Observatory dome done in white opal enamel surrounded by stars. The second Calibre 8915, the Luxe, will find its home on the other precious-metal models in the line, either made with the brand’s 18-karat Sedna, Moonshine, or Canopus gold seen across the case, the hand-guilloché dial, and, of course, the movement itself. (Lindo chose to rock the Moonshine Gold on Moonshine Gold iteration, priced at approximately $86,000, for Sinners‘s big night at the Oscars.) As for the Calibre 8914, it can be found in the collection’s four steel models.
Each model is a callback to myriad design features on past Omega models. That two-hand dial, for one, comes from the 1948 Centenary (the brand’s first chronometer-certified automatic wristwatch), while the pie-pan dial (seen in various blue, green, and golden hues throughout the line) and that Constellation medallion caseback both appear on watches from 1952. The star adorning the space above 6 o’clock also harks back to 1950s timepieces from Omega. And to finish off the look, you can opt for alligator straps in a variety of colours, or perhaps a gold iteration to match the precious-metal models; the brick-like pattern on the 18-karat Moonshine bracelet was also inspired by Omega watches from the ’50s.
We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled for any other Constellation Observatory timepieces (or any other unreleased models from the brand) at the rest of the star-studded events headed our way this year—perhaps the Met Gala?
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In Search of White Gold
Colorado’s barely known San Juan Mountains do a fine line in bespoke skiing experiences, luring alpine-sports cognoscenti and billionaire thrill-seekers alike.
“Though no one currently on staff is at liberty to say, billionaire actor Tom Cruise is a very average heli-snowboarder. But although no one currently on staff is at liberty to say, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos—the world’s second richest human—makes up for Cruise’s inability with his off-piste prowess. The pair have been clients of Telluride Helitrax, a heli-skiing outfit operating in the backcountry behind Telluride Mountain Resort, in remote south-west Colorado, since 1982. My source, a former guide who prefers to remain anonymous, admits he’s entertained a host of household-name One Percenters over the years.”
“Power billionaires aren’t going to the popular resorts any more,” he reveals over a happy-hour drink at a Telluride bar. “Luxury skiing these days, it’s all about exclusivity. No one with any clout shares snow, and at every resort, no matter how fancy, you have to share the slopes. But nowhere is more exclusive than the backcountry. That’s your billionaire’s playground. And no backcountry is more exclusive than San Juan backcountry.”
Which is precisely why I am here. Australia’s considerable brigade of free-spending, snow-crazed executives may jet off to Vail and Aspen each northern winter for thrills, but it turns out some of the world’s most choicest ski experiences have been right under their noses—only a short helicopter ride, car journey or private jet flight from said resorts.
Packed into the ultra-rugged southern end of the Rocky Mountains, the San Juans are a little chunk of the Swiss Alps in the US—young, ridiculously spectacular formations known for their steep slopes, deep powder snow and Disney-esque triangular peaks, all bathed in 300-plus days of sunshine a year. And the region is augmented by unique, and select, backcountry options that rival anything currently in the upscale ski orbit.
Case in point: North America’s highest skiing setting, Silverton Mountain. Located in the heart of the San Juans, outside the tiny town of Silverton, the 4,111 m peak boasts 736 hectares of chair-accessible terrain set among what is reputedly the deepest, steepest snow in the nation. It also offers a further 10,000 hectares of private terrain, serviced by heli-ski operation Heli Adventures. This is the Shangri-La of skiing: every slope connoisseur has heard of it, though most wonder if it actually exists.
We arrive via the treacherous Million Dollar Highway, where a disturbing lack of guard rails sometimes causes travellers to plummet into the valley floor (the death toll, grimly, averages eight people per year). Silverton Mountain was bought in 2023 by Heli Adventures’ young co-founders Andy Culp and Brock Strasbourger. While private punters can book the hill in its entirety, starting from around $14,000 per day, plus extra for single heli-skiing runs, the destination is also open to the public from Thursdays to Saturdays through winter.
“Silverton is a bastion for the pure ski experience,” Culp says. “All that corporate consolidation that happened when ski resorts all over the world developed condos and real estate and got super-busy… well, it never happened here. You’re able to access Alaska-like terrain from an old rickety chairlift, but you’re an hour’s drive from a pretty major airport [Montrose]. And you can access snow that’s even better than most heli-skiing straight off your lift.”
There’s no radio-frequency lift passes when I arrive. In fact, I don’t get a lift pass at all. A discarded school bus doubles as the “second chairlift”; it picks me up and returns me to a yurt which serves as a restaurant and bar. “There’s a time and a place to hang out at The Little Nell [Aspen’s legendary après-ski bar] and the world doesn’t need more of that,” Culp says. “This is the new luxury. We also run a heli-ski business out of Aspen [Aspen Heli-Skiing] but this is where we come. You can’t put a price tag on what we have here.”
I drive away from the mountain, back along the perilous Million Dollar Highway, park my car and disappear into the San Juan National Forest with guide Kaylee Walden. This white-coated outback between Silverton and Ouray, dubbed “the Switzerland of America”, offers swathes of primo backcountry skiing terrain. The ski touring here is often likened to Europe’s iconic Haute Route—an emblematic trail between Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn.
The operator Mountain Trip offers a Colorado version of that feted circuit, on a multi-day traverse between secluded huts. All in all, there’s nearly 8,000 km² of national forest and 2,500 hectares of wilderness to explore, frequented only by the occasional intrepid enthusiast.
A wood-burning sauna is being prepared as I arrive at Thelma Hut, 4,500 m above sea level. Traditionally, US Forest Service huts were humble affairs, with rudimentary bunks, self-service kitchens, and food supplies brought in by skiers. This evening, however, a chef is preparing local bison across from an open fireplace as the sun sets through a floor-to-ceiling window against a horizon of white mountains. As he works, I walk out into the snow to study the twilight sky; beaming planets shine down on me, necklaces of tiny stars sparkle.
Back down to earth, upon my return to “civilisation”, we take a two-hour car ride to Telluride, probing through the San Juans. The small town is picture-postcard pretty, wedged at the end of a box canyon surrounded by Colorado’s tallest waterfalls, and hosts the highest concentration of 4,000-m-plus peaks in the state. Most of its buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places, including a bank that was robbed in 1889 by the outlaw Butch Cassidy.
While the locale offers everything from luxurious on-mountain dining options to 7-km-long runs, it’s the heli-ski enterprise that’s lured me. Telluride Helitrax holds sole rights to over 500 km² of completely deserted ski terrain, a few minutes’ flying time from town. The company runs a range of Eurocopters which guests can charter into Colorado’s best alpine basins, cirques and couloirs. “The range mightn’t be as expansive as Alaska,” says Telluride Helitrax program director Joseph Shults. “But the views, the terrain, the snow depth and quality is as good.”
I’m staying in a privately owned three-bedroom penthouse apartment, where a helicopter takes off each morning for convenience (when I’m done carving clouds, I move a kilometre up the mountain to the seven-bedroom, three-storey mountain retreat Hood Park Haven, valued at around $42 million). Telluride Helitrax uses an abundance of drop-off locations, all above the tree line, meaning everyone from intermediates to experts can be catered for.
During my three-day odyssey, I don’t cross a single other ski track, but it’s the peace that is most startling. In this pocket of montane paradise, there is, literally, not a single sound—a stark contrast to the whirling fury of the chopper that transports me. My experienced guide Bill Allen won’t reveal who’s come before Robb Report. “You’d know their names,” he says, grinning.
And so the San Juans remain a secret to all but a fortunate few. Of all the luxuries the ultra-wealthy enjoy in the skiing ecosphere, the promise of untouched snow is by far the most enviable. Here in Colorado is where the white gold truly lies.
Photography: Kane Scheidegger (heli-skiing); Patrick Coulie (hut); Courtesy of Colorado Tourism Office (Hood Park Haven).
This article appears in the Autumn issue 2026 of Robb Report Australia New-Zealand. Click here to subscribe.
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Best Combustion Supercar: Ferrari 12Cilindri Spider
A modern classic in the making, combining naturally aspirated power with elegant restraint to deliver performance that feels as refined as it is visceral.
In a year when carmakers of all persuasions sheepishly extended hyperbolic electric targets, it’s fitting that the monastic puritans of Maranello—who, lest we forget, won’t finally yield to the sin of battery power until October with the Elettrica—opted to make combustion their major power play.
As an uncertain future of AI omnipresence barrels towards us, the 12Cilindri—an analogue, open-topped tribute to Ferrari’s late-’60s/early-’70s grand tourer, the Daytona—represents a defiant fade into the past, a pause for breath, a fleeting return to The Good Times when nascent technology provoked excitement rather than existential dread.
Guiding this automotive nostalgia trip is, as the nomenclature suggests, a naturally aspirated 6.5-litre V12 engine, generating an unceasing wave of power as it sears towards the 9,500 rpm redline with relative nonchalance. That’s because the 12Cilindri is not a mouth-foaming attack-dog. It scales performance heights with the refinement of the finest Italian works of art; its “Bumpy Road” mode facilitates comfy al fresco GT cruising, and even the imperious powerplant is mannerly at most speeds.
For all the yesteryear romance, progressive technologies and engineering, such as a world-class 8-speed transmission, advanced electronic aids and independent four-wheel steering, are baked into the deal. The 12Cilindri’s clean, stark design somehow toggles between retro and modern; and while vaguely polarising, one can’t ignore its magnetic road presence.
In terms of aesthetics, Ferrari describes the 12Cilindri as being “ready for space”; in many ways, a fantasy vehicle that transports users to another dimension is probably what the world needs right now.
The Numbers
Engine: 6.5-litre V12
Power: 610kW
Torque: 678 Nm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch auto
0-100 km/h: 2.95 seconds
Top speed: 340 km/h
Price: From $886,800
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High and Low
At Le Bernardin, Aldo Sohm oversees one of the most formidable cellars in fine dining. But on the beach, he’ll happily drink a cheap rosé. The world-class sommelier explains why taste—and humility—matter more than price.
Aldo Sohm is one of the most accomplished sommeliers in the world. The 54-year-old Austrian heads up an oenophile’s empire on New York City’s West 51st Street, where he both serves as wine director at Michelin three-star Le Bernardin and leads his namesake wine bar, just across the road from the fine-dining institution. (He spends his time literally running back and forth between the two.) So it may come as a surprise that this man, who sips prized varietals all day, admits to the joys of a glass of Whispering Angel, a ubiquitous rosé that retails at stateside Target stores for US$22.99 (around $30) a bottle.
The context here is important; the aptly named Sohm is quick to clarify that he’s not about to start serving Whispering Angel as one of the pairings with chef Eric Ripert’s US$530 (around $750) eight-course tasting menu. But during a trip to the Caribbean for the Cayman Cookout food festival, Sohm’s wife requested a glass of rosé on the beach. When he went to fetch it, she specified that she wanted a cheap drop, not the fancy stuff that he likely would have grabbed. “I felt kind of gobsmacked, right?”
Sohm says as we’re sitting in the tasting room at Aldo Sohm Wine Bar. “Now, rather than just criticising, I have to admit: I got out of the water, and I tried Whispering Angel, too. It was delicious.”
Unlikely as it may be, this humility is perhaps the key to Sohm’s success. His lack of self-seriousness makes him an anomaly in the oftentimes highfalutin world of fine wine. Rather than shaming you for your preferences, Sohm will indulge your desires. Maybe, as in the case of his wife, you’re going to be right. More likely than not, you’re going to be wrong. He won’t simply tell you that, though; he’ll use his encyclopedic knowledge of wine to subtly steer you in the right direction, allowing you to come to that conclusion on your own. “You just wake up from your dream—and mistake—and realise that, ‘Oh yeah, he’s right,’” says Ripert, who has worked with Sohm for almost two decades.
Sohm intended to move to New York for only 18 months. Growing up in Innsbruck, in the Austrian Alps, he wanted to be a helicopter pilot. Like many childhood fantasies, that didn’t come to fruition, and he settled on something more practical, becoming a teacher at a hospitality school. Having overcorrected—“That was way too boring for me,” he admits—he switched to the more public-facing side of the industry, getting a job as a restaurant server. It was then, when he was about 21, that Sohm fell in love with wine. (Prior to that, he was a self-proclaimed Bacardi and coke guy.)
After studying wine on his own time, he began his formal sommelier education in 1998. He rose quickly through the ranks and was named the best sommelier in Austria in 2002, a title he defended the following two years and reclaimed in 2006. Amid that stretch, he sojourned to New York in 2004 with the goal of improving his English to compete in international competitions. It paid off: four years later, he won the top prize from the World Sommelier Association. But more than the accolades, Sohm had discovered a career. By then, he had joined Le Bernardin after stints at Wallsé, Café Sabarsky and Blaue Gans—all Austrian restaurants in Manhattan.
“Back then we had a very strong French sommelier community, and they controlled everything,” he says. “And it was an uproar because how come an Austrian sommelier came to one of the most French restaurants?” He proved his bona fides, and in 2013 Ripert and Maguy Le Coze, the co-owners of Le Bernardin, approached him with the idea of partnering with them in a wine bar. It was Ripert who suggested putting the connoisseur’s name on it.
Aldo Sohm Wine Bar debuted the following year, with a team that Sohm handpicked. Sarah Thomas was part of that opening crew, after meeting Sohm during a fateful dinner at Le Bernardin with her cousins. When her relatives divulged to him that she was a sommelier in Pittsburgh, he proceeded to serve a blind tasting to Thomas. “He didn’t say what I got right or wrong. He didn’t care about that,” she tells me. “He just wanted to hear me talk about wine, I guess. So I did.”
When he offered her a job at the end of the meal, she laughed. Sohm didn’t. Thomas promptly packed up and moved to New York. After she spent about nine months at the wine bar, Sohm promoted her to Le Bernardin, where she worked for another five years. When she decided to start her own business—Kalamata’s Kitchen, which aims to teach kids about other cultures through food—Sohm was one of her earliest investors. He may have found full-time teaching to be too banal, but it’s still a huge part of what he does now, identifying the next generation of stars and giving them the guidance to grow into their own—whether that takes them into the upper echelons of fine dining or beyond the white tablecloths altogether.
Overseeing two teams, at two very different spaces, feeds Sohm’s prodigious ambition. He’s on a mission to completely reshape the world of wine, from what’s in your glass to the glass itself to what you enjoy it with—say, Champagne with eggs. Along with his day jobs, he has partnered with the Austrian brand Zalto to create his own wineglasses. “As a sommelier, you criticise only, but you make nothing,” Sohm says. So, he also now wears the winemaker hat, producing a Grüner Veltliner under the Sohm & Kracher label, a relatively accessible quaff that’s a collaboration with his fellow countryman Gerhard Kracher. And in 2019 he added author to his résumé, releasing Wine Simple, a “totally approachable guide”, as the book’s subtitle puts it. He followed that up with Wine Simple: Perfect Pairings, to help you pick the right bottle for the right meal and the right moment.
“In wine pairings, you have three possible combinations,” Sohm says. “There’s the perfect pairing. Then sometimes you have flavours just going along… it’s like humans—they talk, they interact, but they never connect. And then there’s conflict.” It’s that first one he’s after every time.
“Sohm fell in love with wine when he was about 21. Prior to that, he was a self-proclaimed Bacardi and coke guy.”
Outside of the restaurant, the wine bar and the cellar, Sohm is an avid cyclist who owns six bikes, a number he admits is excessive—especially in New York City. Riding is what he credits with keeping him healthy, when so much of his time is spent eating and drinking—and drinking some more.
Still, despite the 18-year career at one of the world’s best restaurants, despite the top honours from his peers, despite the wine and the wineglasses and the wine books, Sohm doesn’t consider himself successful. Every day, he’s trying to figure out how he can self-correct. “I like what I do, so I go back home that night, think of things which I can improve,” he says. “I get annoyed when I make a mistake, but I improve the next day.”
His quest for perfection may never be over, but Sohm does concede that he’s happy—its own type of success. Sometimes he finds that happiness while sipping a glass of 1980 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche, a bottle now so rare and coveted that he calls it “unattainable”. And sometimes, if to his chagrin, he finds it while drinking a mass-produced rosé on the beach.
Photography by Tori Latham
This article appears in the Autumn issue 2026 of Robb Report Australia New-Zealand. Click here to subscribe.
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This article appears in the Autumn issue 2026 of Robb Report Australia New-Zealand. Click here to subscribe.
