M Restaurant Group is a pioneering collection of award-winning restaurants and lounges in China. In 1989, Australian cook Michelle Garnaut—the signature ‘M’—opened M at the Fringe in Hong Kong, one of the first restaurants with a new take on modern/contemporary fine-dining in the city. “Each M venue has become a city institution, situated in a privileged location that captures the heart of its destination.” It was a runaway hit, and ten years later she took a daring step and opened M on the Bund in Shanghai, at a time when the historic waterfront was known mainly for dilapidated offices rather than the lively nightlife scene it has since developed. She tested the waters first with a stint cooking at the landmark Peace Hotel, and in the end the gamble paid off. Now restaurants and bars of all kinds have sprouted up in the shadow of the Art Deco Nissin Shipping Building where M on the Bund presides, still going strong after nearly 20 years. Today, the M Restaurant Group includes two venues: M on the Bund and Glamdining lounge and bar in Shanghai. Delicious food in a chic, comfortable environment are ideals embodied by both restaurants, with classics like M’s Crispy Suckling Pig and M’s Very Famous Pavlova always greeting diners, along with seasonal specialities, fresh, homemade bread and signature cocktails, all made from scratch. And perhaps most meaningfully, the restaurants are a part of the communities they serve. M has spearheaded the sourcing of sustainable and organic foods in China, working with local producers to set standards. A focus on the arts has yielded the Shanghai and Capital Literary Festivals, the M Literary Residency and a vibrant series of talks and salons, all of them in the comfortable confines of M venues.
M restaurants are institutions, in the best sense of the word: Familiar, beloved, unmistakably themselves.