What’s M on the Bund’s recipe for success as Shanghai’s fine dining restaurant celebrates its 20th anniversary?
Pioneering eatery on city’s historic Bund – known for its signature dishes and riverside terrace – has survived many challenges, says Australian restaurateur Michelle Garnaut
If finding success in the restaurant industry is difficult, then in the Chinese city of Shanghai it seems close to impossible.
Social media posts about “150 restaurants that closed this year” are trending on the mainland – thanks to an appetite for both business news and a form of customer Schadenfreude.
Nowadays, Shanghai residents don’t think anything of going to dine at some of their favourite restaurants on the Bund. The view, the hints of history, being in a real “building” for a change – it all just makes sense.
[A restaurant] is like a film – look at the people in the credits in the making of a film as an example of the behind the scenes work that goes into making the front-end production look flawless
Yet 20 years ago, there was no restaurant of that kind on the Bund – the city’s waterfront area featuring many historic buildings that once housed international banks, consulates, clubs and trading houses.
The best ideas seem obvious once somebody is the first to do it; the restaurant, M on the Bund, was the first fine dining restaurant to open on the Bund in 1999, and remained the only venue of its kind there during its first five years.
This year the restaurant is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Led by Australian restaurateur Michelle Garnaut, M on the Bund has survived all of the challenges that come with opening a restaurant, as well as China-specific ones, including the 2002-04 outbreak of Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome), the financial crash in 2008-09, a rapidly developing society and being a Western venue serving a largely Chinese customer-base.