Pure Shanghai cuisine is known for their heavy and highly flavored sauce made with soy and lots of wine. Their lavish use of Shaoxing wine in their dishes will immediately made it known to the eater that Shanghai delicacies are being served. Their dishes are more oil than other Chinese cuisines. Slow braising and red cooked are their signature and preferred cooking method as compared to stir frying.

Cold dishes are also one of the specialities of this cusine. The Shanghai chefs are well known for their colorful and beautifully arranged cold platters. Each platter contains an assortment of cold dishes which have been carefully and finely chopped; sliced; cooked and color matched before placing on the plate. Famous cold dishes are wine chicken; braised sliced beef, smoked fish and Shanghai bean curd.

Hongkong Style Shanghai Cuisine is a hybrid of food, created by combining the Western influences in the traditional recipes and ingredients. The result has been well received, not only was it able to produce the sumptuous traditional dishes, but it's more adaptive to today's taste.