Rooftop escape from the hustle and bustle
Rooftop terrace @ EDM Cafe
SUMMER heat may make you desperate. Apart from bars, there are some nice cafes with a lovely rooftop terrace in the city, offering a great place to hang out with your families and friends in the evening. Well, it’s still your choice to stay cool indoors or enjoy heated breezes on terrace. Zhu Jing recommends some good ones.
French windows of EDM Cafe
EDM Café
Against the clear summer sky, the blue-gray tinted building still stands out from the traditional residential community on Jianguo Road West. Its occupier, EDM Café, has gained a lot of attention online for its neat modern décor and a lovely rooftop terrace.
The blue-white themed terrace has been popular among guests though it charges for professional photography and filming. Well, the entry to the terrace is a minimum spending of 88 yuan per person.
The first floor of the café features a spacious seating area, embraced by an L-shaped array of individual seats by French windows. Some individual rooms on the second and third floors are for private rentals like meetings and offices for SOHO workers, while others are served as fully equipped guesthouses.
Offering a wide range of coffee and tea with a selection of cakes and light meals, the café can be a great place for a high-tea get-together with friends or a weekend morning brunch. Light meals like sandwiches, salads, and pastas are freshly prepared and made in the kitchen hidden at the back.
Desserts are outsourced but it’s highly recommended you try its cheeseballs (4 yuan each) if you look for some smaller treats going with coffee. In a mouthful size, the mini dessert has a strong cheese taste. Raspberry cheesecake pie (28 yuan) is a combo of cheesecake and dessert pie. The shortcake crust is filled with heavy cream cheese, dried raspberries and chopped walnuts. The filling tastes playful yet still quite sweet, though it goes well with an Americano (30 yuan). The house blend uses four different beans: Guatemala, Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and Sidamo, and Chinese Yunnan.
Opened for only seven months, EDM Café has another establishment already on Wuyuan Road, where its management company is located.
Raspberry cheesecake tart @ EDM Cafe
Address: 348 Jianguo Rd W.
Tel: 150-2150-5106
Opening hours: 8am-8pm
Recommend: Raspberry cheesecake tart, Cheeseball
The cafe's rooftop terrace faces the famous Jing'an Temple.
See the Scenery of Balcony
Hidden in an office building in central Jing’an Temple business district, the café occupies a luxurious area of 1,500 square meters, including a 700sqm outdoor terrace facing the temple.
Indoors, the newly refurbished café is a paradise for nutcracker lovers. Every single corner is decorated with nutcracker dolls, each displayed with a price sticker on the bottom is for sale. The L-shaped seating area also has a couple of medium sized semi-private chambers by the window, available for booking.
Outdoors, the terrace overlooks busy Nanjing Road West and Jing’an Park with different seating sections to accommodate guests’ needs. The space can also be used for private occasions or corporate events upon request.
At See the Scenery of Balcony, customers can choose from three different house blends for espresso-based coffee (plus one single origin espresso bean) though each charges differently. For example, the blend of beans from Ethiopia, Costa Rica and Colombia charges 50 yuan (US$7.4) for a hot Americano while the latte is priced at 54 yuan.
Apart from membership cards for discounted price, there is an afternoon deal, 78 yuan for a drink and a cake, which is valid from 11am to 6pm every day. Desserts are outsourced. The café also offers a selection of flower/fruit teas and iced flavored sodas. The English breakfast brunch (78 yuan) is prepared on site upon order, available until noon daily.
Late afternoons and evenings are highly recommended to enjoy the nice view on terrace though be well prepared for heated breezes as the mercury starts to climb high.
English breakfast bruch @ See the Scenery of Balcony
Address: 7F, 2 Huashan Rd
Tel: 180-1914-5142
Opening hours: 9am-10pm (Sun-Thu)
9am-12am (Fri-Sat)
Recommend: Chestnut cake, flower/fruit teas
Wocaff is known for its lovely terrace garden.
Wocafee
The café is located on a rooftop in a local creative industrial park. Thanks to its location, it is complimented with a nice outdoor garden, which can be turned into barbeque parties or other private occasions. A minimum of 10 people is required with a charge starting from 198 yuan per head.
If you don’t like to be sweaty outdoors, the greenhouse-style café also features a tatami seating area with a glass rooftop, which is big enough for eight people.
Wocafee offers not only drinks but also afternoon tea sets and a lunch menu. The current deals available include that each lunch set with rice will have a complimentary soft or iced drink of the month and each order with cocktails in the evening will have a complimentary bowl of chips.
Address: 206, Bldg 3, 1158 Luochuan Rd M.
Tel: 5661-9732
Opening hours: 10am-9pm
Recommend: Cheesecake
