The resolute restaurateur

Sitting at her restaurant, M on the Bund, overlooking the Huangpu River, Michelle Garnaut maintains her effervescence after returning from a business trip. As the owner of the three M restaurants in China and a pillar of the local restaurant community, the 53-year-old Australian never stops flying.

Over her career, Garnaut has gone from slinging plates to running some of the best-known western restaurants in China and founding a literary festival that has become one of the most significant events of its kind in the region.

"I didn't expect to be famous when I was a nobody, but I did think if I wanted to do anything, I would do it very well," Garnaut told the Global Times.

A humble beginning

A native of Melbourne who now lives in Shanghai, Garnaut was the oldest of nine children. Like many teenage girls, she was crazy for trendy clothes, CDs and jewelry.

But her wants were tempered by her parents' practicality.

Garnaut remembered how her mother once gave her two Australian dollars to buy a generic pair of jeans, adding that she would have figured out for herself how to get the rest of the money to buy the more expensive brand-named pair she really wanted. "I was always encouraged to be independent," said Garnaut, whose father died when she was 16.

At that age, she went to work part-time as a waitress so she could buy what she wanted without burdening the family.

The experience made her realize that she liked socializing, looking after people and making them happy.

At university, she studied English literature. However, her lack of interest in academia left her bored with campus life and her orthodox peers. "The idea of being a school teacher or working for the government for the rest of my life almost stifled me," she said, grimacing.

When she was 21, Garnaut left Australia to spend two and a half years traveling. She worked as a waitress, a cook, an English teacher - anything she could do to support herself. When she returned to Australia, she abandoned university halfway through her degree and enrolled in a catering program at a local college.

At the end of 1983, with one class left to finish, she left Australia, and never went back.

Her first opening

She ended up settling in Hong Kong where she continued to work as a chef. At the time, she was dating a chef who wanted to open a restaurant. "Open a restaurant? Are you crazy? We don't have any money! How are we going to open it?" she recalled saying.

Still, she saw an opportunity. "I felt very strongly that the type of restaurant that I liked was not the type of restaurant found in Hong Kong," Garnaut said. She thought that many of the city's restaurants at the time were pretentious and boring.

Garnaut and her boyfriend needed HK$2.5 million to open one of their own. She borrowed money from her mother and sister, giving them a share of the venture. Her boyfriend, however, did not stay. He ended up getting sick and departing Hong Kong, leaving her to finish the job.

She successfully got 20 people to invest and borrowed the remaining start up cash from a bank. In total, it cost HK$500,000 to start up M at the Fringe, which opened in 1989.

The restaurant was one of the earliest independent establishments to offer fine dining in the city. It was an immediate success, allowing her to pay back her investors and the bank in less than a year.

Garnaut attributed her success to "a little bit of luck" and "a lot of hard work."

In the early days, Garnaut spent all of her time on the business. "For me, my work is my life. There is no difference between work and life," she said.

She went on to open two other high-end restaurants: M on the Bund in Shanghai in 1999 and Capital M in Beijing in 2009. M at the Fringe closed in 2009 after Garnaut lost the lease on the building. She is still looking for a new location.

"Success is what you have achieved in your life," she said.

Another way to play host

Garnaut is fond of reading. In 2003, she founded the Shanghai International Literary Festival. Garnaut said the festival started almost accidentally. When the Glamour Bar opened in 2001 at M on the Bund, Garnaut thought it would be a good idea to host cultural events in winter where people could drink and enjoy gourmet food.

One of Garnaut's friends knew Australian writer Frank Moorhouse and suggested that she invite him to perhaps do a reading at the restaurant. After word got out that Moorhouse was coming to Shanghai, members of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival called Garnaut to see if he could participate in their festival before going to Shanghai. "At that time, we joked that we should start the Shanghai International Literary Festival," Garnaut said.

Although it started as just a joke, in the end, they decided it was a pretty good idea. "In the following years, we got more and more writers to join," she said. "We are now up to more than 50 writers with about 4,000 people attending this year. I am interested in ideas, and the festival is open to opportunities and new ideas."

Garnaut believes life is about expansion, including everything you are interested in, she said.