Restaurateur Michelle Garnaut helped reinvent the historic Bund waterfront as a premium location for eateries and nightclubs in Shanghai by opening M on the Bund in 1999, a move that also earned her a privileged place in Nicholas Lander's book The Art of the Restaurateur.

The book is filled with profiles and tips on how to stay innovative, including useful details on lighting and wall decorations.

"She transformed the Bund, and she's done it in such style," the author says. "She was here when it was a run-down piece of property ... the landlord told her that her dish prices were too high."

Lander gave a presentation at the same venue recently, during which he outlined the 10 key qualities needed to survive in this increasingly unforgiving business.

As in his book, which is available in China as an e-book, he used Australian Garnaut to exemplify "rigor and flexibility".

The only Chinese he included is Hong Kong's Alan Yau, although he does not merit his own chapter. London-based Yau founded the Wagamama food chain, Hakkasan - Britain's first Michelin-starred Cantonese eatery - and Yauatcha. His first project on the Chinese mainland saw him collaborate on Jing Yaa Tang, a Peking duck restaurant, in Beijing last summer.

Lander has served as the Financial Times' restaurant critic for the past quarter of a century. After a stint as a wine importer, he opened a restaurant in central London, L'Escargot in Greek Street, in the mid-1980s.

"Chefs get far too much attention," he says. "All the hype hoisted on them over the last decade has been overdone." He also described Michelin as having fallen from grace since expanding beyond France.

Garnaut says the industry in cities like Shanghai has become increasingly homogenous as creative younger minds fail to finance their own operations. She drew attention to how Britain's "Naked Chef" Jamie Oliver is stretching himself even thinner by opening a new Italian restaurant in Hong Kong.

"The downside is that everything is becoming a brand, a group," she adds. "I see less and less space for young people, even if they're prepared to take a risk."

"If I were young now and starting out, I'd open a pop-up store, but you've got to use social media to do it well," says the Melbourne-born entrepreneur, who launched M at the Fringe in Hong Kong in 1989 and later worked as a guest chef at the Peace Hotel in Shanghai.

"It's much harder to do what I did here 15 years ago now without speaking the language," she adds. "You have to be pretty strong in sticking to what you're doing."

Garnaut says her rent bill has grown eightfold in Shanghai compared to just a 300-percent increase in Hong Kong since she set up in the respective locations.

She added to her stable with the Glamour Bar at M on the Bund in 2001, which has served as the venue for the Shanghai Literary Festival, which she launched one year later. This year's event wrapped up in late March.

Speaking to one of the biggest crowds of the festival, Lander listed the key attributes of a successful restaurateur: A sense of humor; a love of food, wine and people; picking an inexpensive location on the way up; financial nous; a thick skin; and appreciating the importance of the local community.

He also predicted that the inconsistent and often disappointing level of service at many Chinese restaurants will improve dramatically in the next five years.

"It's got to start at the top and then percolate down," he says.

"You wait. We're living in the golden age of restaurants."

matthewhodges@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 04/08/2014 page10)