The Australian who remade the Bund on Shanghai
In 1998, Australian Michelle Garnaut spent five days at the Peace Hotel on the Bund in Shanghai, overlooking the Huangpu River. Before World War Two, the Bund had been the most important business street in the city.
“Many of the buildings on the Bund were derelict. It was dark and dingy,” she said. Despite that, she decided to open a Western restaurant there.
M on the Bund opened in January 1999 on the seventh floor of a building of a shipping company. It became the most famous high-end Western restaurant in Shanghai, and China. Kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers and CEO went to dinner there. It helped to transform the Bund.
This week the Asia Society showed “M on the Bund”, an emotional film by Shanghai director Luo Tong about its final days.
Garnaut was born in 1957 in Melbourne, one of nine children. Her grandmother was a strong woman, a model. “In those days, very few women went into business.”
After studying catering at the William Angliss Institute of TAFE in Melbourne, she arrived in Hong Kong in 1984. “I wanted to work in a restaurant but was told that I would earn much more in a topless bar.” She started cooking at Restaurant 97 in Lan Kwai Fong before launching her own restaurant.
M at the Fringe opened in 1989 in the building of the Hong Kong Fringe Club. It earned a good reputation. She met business people, local celebrities and people in finance.
In 1998, she decided that Shanghai was the best site for her next restaurant. “People said I was crazy. This was a real risk. The Bund was designated for government and diplomatic offices. There were no commercial entities there. But the shipping company had a canteen, so it had a food licence.”
The decision was based on her vision and business sense. In 1993, the Chinese government had announced the Pudong New Area, with economic policies more generous than those in the four SEZs. The western tip, facing the Bund, was the Lujiazui Financial and Trade Zone.
“There was Pudong and the new international airport also in Pudong. The policy of the government was very clear,” Garnaut said.
For five years, M on the Bund was the only up-market independent western restaurant on the Bund. Its reputation grew. The Queen of Holland came for a meal. Presidents, prime ministers and chief executives followed.
In 2006, she opened the Glamour Bar on the floor below the restaurant. It hosted music, Classical and modern, burlesque, cabaret and other events. In 2002, she started the Shanghai International Film Festival. It grew into the largest English-language literary event in China, with over 50 international and local authors over three weekends and an audience of more than 4,000.
She was also active in the women’s movement. She started Mentor Walks, in which young women would walk with an elder sister and ask about life, love and careers. She nurtured young Chinese musicians, giving them a platform to launch their careers.
She did not do so well in Beijing. “I found the business environment there quite different to that in Shanghai. Getting official approval took a long time.” She opened Capital M in 2009 and closed it in 2017.
China’s Covid pandemic of 2020 to 2022 was a catastrophe for the retail and hospitality sectors. Travel in and out of China was suspended and many foreign residents left Shanghai because of the Covid restrictions. This was especially bad for M on the Bund, because many of its clientele were these residents and visiting businessmen, scholars and tourists.
Her lease expired during the pandemic, and she had to negotiate a new one, for seven years. Rents on the Bund are among the highest in Shanghai. So she decided sadly to close the restaurant.
Staff wept as they prepared to leave the place where they had spent their working life. On the final night of February 14, 2022, Garnaut was invited to the terrace overlooking the Huangpu. On an office building on the other side of the river, a neon sign showed “再見 M on the Bund” (Goodbye M on the Bund). The city was saying farewell to her.
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