Three on the Bund

It's hard to imagine where all those cigar-puffing foreign businessmen and cognac-sipping Chinese entrepreneurs spent their time before Three on the Bund opened last year. The renovated 1916 building on Shanghai's historic waterfront is a monument to the Chinese dream and the money flowing into the world's hottest market. Designed by American architect Michael Graves, it houses, inter alia, four of the city's top eateries, a spa with rivers of flowing Evian, and the city's flagship Armani store. At the velvet-swathed Jean Georges restaurant, tycoons hammer out transpacific deals over East-meets-West cuisine, while at the Shanghai Gallery of Art, trendsetters browse pricey, contemporary Chinese paintings. But by far the most exclusive spot in this modern-day pleasure palace is the Cupola—the building's domed lookout, which offers both eight-seater and two-seater private dining chambers. The food, courtesy of any of Three on the Bund's restaurants, is tasty enough, but it's the view—of the futuristic skyscrapers of the Pudong business district across the river and the neoclassical financial institutions down the embankment—that is superlative. What better place to toast the 21st century than this lofty crossroads of old and new China?