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Shanghai cuisine emphasizes aesthetically pleasing presentation, which explains the ornate birds—orange, like the walls—carved from carrots and melons on the tables at Our Place. Unlike spicy Szechuan or mild Cantonese, this style of cooking promises rich, subtle, and sometimes sweet flavorings influenced by the neighboring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. Our Place shines, both in aesthetics and in the menu’s refined offerings. The intricately folded steamed soup dumplings, melding hand-chopped pork with steaming, beefy soup in a light, rice-dough skin, require time and skill. Nuanced eight-treasure wintermelon soup’s translucent, refreshing broth is punctuated with peas and mushrooms; the nontraditional diced carrots and baby corn mark it as served in New York, not Shanghai. Peppercorn-accented fresh squid here features deep-fried, chewy calamari satisfyingly heightened by spicy, bright green Chinese peppers, but the whole pork shoulder, slow-braised with aniseed and Chinese spinach, may just be the tastiest value on the menu. Shanghai natives would consider the succulent tendon and marbled fat the finest parts, but Western eaters will be equally happy with the huge chunk of tender pork itself—enhanced by faint wisps of licorice and soy. With its beautifully prepared, authentic provincial cuisine, Our Place a fine exemplar of chic Chinese dining. — Timothy Cooper

Shanghai steamed soup dumplings with hand chopped pork, $10.25; Shanghai-style whole braised pork shoulder, $17.45