Michelle Garnaut  Michelle Anne Garnaut, is an Australian restaurateur and cook best known for her series of upscale restaurants in China such as M on the Bund, Glam, Capital M, the Glamour Bar and M at the Fringe. Garnaut is also a founder of the Shanghai International Literary Festival, the M Literary Residency, the Village People Project and has spearheaded Mentor Walks in both Beijing and Shanghai. In 2018, Michelle Garnaut was awarded an Order of Australia (AO) for her work. After dropping out of Monash University, Garnaut travelled around the world, spending time in Europe, including Greece and England, as well as the United States of America. She then returned to Australia to study catering at the William Angliss Institute of TAFE. She then went to London, where she worked at Leiths School of Food and Wine as one of the head chefs on the Orient Express. Following this, she arrived in Hong Kong in 1984. Though she only intended a short stay in Hong Kong, she soon began cooking at Restaurant 97 in Hong Kong's Lan Kwai Fong, after which she launched her own catering business. Over a period of 20 years, she then launched three restaurants and a bar in Greater China: M at the Fringe in Hong Kong (1989–2009), M on the Bund in Shanghai (opened 1999), Glamour Bar in Shanghai (2006–2014), Glam in Shanghai (opened in 2015) and Capital M in Beijing (2009-2017). Garnaut originally wanted to open a restaurant in Hong Kong with her former co-worker at the Restaurant 97 Group, fellow Australian Greg Malouf. However, Malouf fell ill and had to return to Australia. During her time at Restaurant 97, Garnaut became acquainted with business contacts, local celebrities and bankers who became investors in her new restaurant. In 1989, Garnaut opened her first restaurant, M at the Fringe, in The Hong Kong Fringe Club's building. Her inspiration behind M at the Fringe was to fill a niche in Hong Kong for modern international restaurants. In an interview with Time Magazine, Garnaut remarked, "When I first arrived in Asia, I was in Hong Kong and got into a lift to go up to a restaurant on the seventh floor, where we were greeted by 20 Chinese guys saying 'Ciao' and singing 'O Sole Mio.' I thought, 'This is crazy.' A restaurant has to have some soul. The whole make-believe world has to have some basis in reality."