Ctrip lists top restaurants in Shanghai

China's biggest online travel agency Ctrip is making a gourmet food map based on Chinese preferences. And more than 450 restaurants in Shanghai made the list by the travel agency's food service section Meishilin (gourmet food forest) in late March.

The list includes 30 star restaurants.

Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet topped the list for its delicate and innovative French menu, says Liu Xiaozhou, Meishilin's CEO.

The restaurants were all rated on dining environment, taste and popularity by Ctrip's users and reviewed by more than 3,000 food experts.

A great many fine restaurants have set up shop in Shanghai since the city set up a port linking it to the outside world 175 years ago.

"It (the setting up of the restaurants) makes Shanghai one of the Chinese cities that boasts the richest cuisine," says Liu. "And our goal is to make more people pay attention to gourmet food."

The travel agency's food information service covers 12,000 restaurants in 120 major tourism destinations worldwide, including 25 cities on the mainland. And the total number of restaurants is expected to reach 25,000 across 150 cities worldwide at the end of this year, says Liu.

To date, daily user traffic at Meishilin is 1.5 million on average.

At the beginning of this year, Ctrip established partnerships with OpenTable, a real-time online reservation network for diners headquartered in the US, to make restaurant bookings easier.

As a result, the number of people who used Ctrip's Meishilin outside the Chinese mainland has witnessed an exponential growth since February, the travel agency reports.

Meishilin will continue to improve the gourmet food list and restaurant booking service.

"We're hammering out details for more links with international (restaurant) reservation service providers," says Liu.

At the same time, a membership system will be coming down the pike, says Liu. And Meishilin members will be given priority to book and taste recommended menus, and have opportunities to dine with celebrities.