The Astoria Confectionary & Tea-Room

When Kyriaco Dimitriades arrived in Shanghai in the 1920s, he was young, ambitious and ready to make his fortune. When he left, in 1949, he had created an icon: the Astoria Confectionary & Tea-Room, which sold bread, pastries and the city’s most gorgeous wedding cakes. His daughter, Daphne Skillen, tells his story:

“My father, Kyriaco Dimitriades, owned and ran Shanghai’s Astoria confectionary & tea-room from 1926 to 1949. It sold buns and bread loaves, caramels and candy and delicious French and Russian cakes with lovely sounding names – milles feuilles, cream puffs, hazelnut slices, palmiers, cream horns – and madly extravagant wedding cakes. Who wouldn’t want a bite of these neoclassical sugar palaces?

The staff at Astoria was largely Russian and Chinese, and the main pastry cook, the “maestro” of many of the wedding cakes, was a Chinese called “Mopi”.

Kyriaco, who was Greek and had come from Asia Minor via Boston to make his fortune, bought Astoria from a Russian gentleman, L. Winikoff, in 1926. Then, it was situated on 7 Broadway, on the site of the current Broadway Mansions, which was built in 1934. When construction began, my father moved to No. 33 Broadway, across from Astor House. The building still stands today.

Astoria was tucked away in a small but vital hub of Shanghai life that revolved around the Broadway Mansions, Astor House, Garden Bridge and Suzhou Creek.

The clientele was as eclectic as old Shanghai: journalists with offices in Broadway Mansions, diplomats from the neighbouring Soviet Embassy and the British Consulate, Astor House residents, members of the nearby Hongkou Jewish community, Greek merchant sailors doing the regular cargo run and after 1937, the occupying Japanese forces.

For an old Shanghailander (I was 12 years old when I left), it’s wonderful to see Shanghai café life revitalised today, and it’s great to see that Astoria, or at least the terraced building which once housed it, still survives — neglected, but still standing.” – Daphne Skillen, Kyriaco Dimitriades’ daughter, 2012.

Postscript: Daphne often visited the site of the Astoria on her frequent trips back to Shanghai, including one memorable trip when she snuck into the closed building, prior to its demolition. Sadly, the building is gone now, and lot has been empty for several years.

We can no longer visit the Astoria, or taste their magnificent creations, but we can still taste the sweet delights from the city’s heritage bakeries: stay tuned for our next heritage bakery and tasting!