Shanghai Daily does not only receive but also gives back to readers and the whole society. The iDEALShanghai Awards conveys the ideal of giving, which also accords with its Chinese slogan "爱de上海," literally meaning "Shanghai of Love."

The awards is divided into 22 sections to award the best restaurants, hotels, spas, bars, supermarkets and tourism destinations in Shanghai, the Yangtze Delta Region and Southeastern Asia.

The iDEALShanghai Awards are the first lifestyle awards hosted by Shanghai Daily, which was founded in 1999. Honors went to restaurants, bars, spas, supermarkets, travel destinations, hotels and airlines of the year. Winners were chosen through an online vote by readers between August 24 and October 24, combined with a contribution from a panel of experts.

The 2012 Shanghai Daily iDEALShanghai Awards Ceremony produced 49 winners in 10 categories, such as dining, accommodation, shopping and sightseeing. They were chosen from 247 candidates through public and jury panel votes.

The six-piece jury included wine columnist John H. Isacs, food critic Shu Qiao and lifestyle columnist Fan Tinglue. The awards are expected to be a lifestyle guideline for expats living in Shanghai as well as surrounding areas.

Almost 200 guests, including senior officials, foreign consuls and delegates from chambers of commerce gathered at The Peninsula Shanghai on November 20 to celebrate the first lifestyle awards hosted by Shanghai Daily.

Peter Zhang, editor-in-chief of Shanghai Daily, appreciated all participants, judges and those who have spent great efforts to make the event a great success.

"With the support, I believe Shanghai Daily will make further improvement and provide even better services for our readers and partners," he said.

"The new sub-brand iDEALShanghai will continue to provide accurate, timely and useful city guide information for local expats and visiting foreigners," he added.

Winners believed that the awards is an important milestone for Shanghai.

"For the future, it (the awards) must ensure that the selection of hotels and venues is impartial and reflective of the market," says Ulf Bremer, general manager of Pudong Shangri-La, East Shanghai. "An element to focus on guest services and delivery of quality must be as important as to the focus on interior design."

Winners said they were honored to receive their awards, and will now strive to achieve even higher standards. Jenny Soo, executive assistant manager of Andaz Shanghai, one of the winners of the Best New Shanghai Hotel Award, says Andaz will continue with its winning formula.

"Good hotel service is not complicated," Soo tells Shanghai Daily. "It means personal service and, in Andaz's case, it also means offering a vibrant environment."

At the ceremony, winners expressed their opinions on creating an "ideal city," offering suggestions on how Shanghai could achieve this goal.

"An ideal city is a metropolis that meets the different needs of today's citizens from multiple angles and levels such as culture, heritage, efficiency, safety and services," said Foued EL Mabrouk, general manager of Grand Hyatt Shanghai, one of the winners of Best Shanghai Hotel.

Bradley Turley, chef and owner of GOGA, the Special Jury Award winner, says Shanghai needs to improve its sense of community.

"It's not that foreign people should have a community or Chinese people should have one," says Turley, "but we should blend together, gathering more talent together. I think Shanghai can do this to create harmony."

However, for Antoine Pernet, general manager of Bar Rouge, one of the winners of Best Bar and Club Award, the city is pretty much ideal as it is.

"Shanghai is already an ideal city because of its energy and enthusiasm," he says. "It's a wonderful place for people to live and play."

Zhu Bing, vice president of city'super Shanghai, a Best Supermarket Award winner, says an ideal city needs to have a well-developed food and dining culture.

"From my industry's angle, an ideal city should deliver food safety combined with a rich dining culture," says Zhu. "I hope the Shanghai government will work on promoting dining and raising food safety standards."

Panel members say such awards were very useful for consumers and industry alike. "Awards serve a very valuable purpose," says Isacs. "We all want better and better services and we need to reward excellence. Awards reward people who provide the best services and tell consumers what is the best in Shanghai."

Members of the jury also reveal their criteria for an ideal venue.

"An ideal restaurant should have two standards: firstly, it should stick to its own characteristics; and secondly, it should offer the best service," says Shu. "In my opinion, all the candidate restaurants we considered meet these standards, perhaps because people from Shanghai and its surrounding areas love and demand good food."

Whether a tourist, visitor on a business trip or an expat already living in Shanghai, iDEALShanghai will ensure you never feel lost or short of options for things to do in the city.

"I think iDEALShanghai brings together the great aspects of the city, such as Shanghai culture, food, entertainment and its lifestyle," says veteran journalist David Maguire, who sat on the iDEALShanghai Awards jury.

For a full list of winners, check B6-7.

For more photos and detail, check www.idealshanghai.com/resource/awards/

About iDEALShanghai

IN August 2012, Shanghai Daily introduced its first sub-brand, iDEALShanghai, to provide accurate and up-to-date city guide information for local expats and foreign visitors.

The sub-brand includes a weekly newspaper, a monthly supplement, a website (iDEALShanghai.com), an iPhone app and now the iDEALShanghai Awards.

The brand title is intended to suggest a quality lifestyle - "i" represents I; "D" stands for Dining; "E" is for Entertainment; "A" for accommodation; and "L" for Leisure.

Shanghai Daily first published its iDEAL weekly newspaper and monthly supplement on October 2010 to provide a complete range of lifestyle information in and around Shanghai and its neighboring cities, covering dining, shopping, tourism and life in local communities.

iDEALShanghai.com aims to be the ultimate guide to the city, offering in English instant access to key travel and leisure information - whether it's finding fun venues or checking out transport options - and much more.

"The website and application are very useful. It can be a lifestyle guide for me to find more popular and interesting outlets and other chip toipcs in the town," says Joseph Chong, general manager of The Peninsula Shanghai.