If one were to hazard a guess as to what the ‘M’ in M at the Fringe stands for, three adjectives might come to mind: magnificent, marvelous or even magical. But, according to owner Michelle Garnaut, M stands for Memorable. M at the Fringe was unprecedented, even unheard of, in Hong Kong’s fine dining scene in 1989 when it took up residence in the Central district in an old dairy farm building dating back to 1913. Today, M at the Fringe is not only a Hong Kong classic, it is also a perennial favorite amongst locals.

The restaurant shares home with the Fringe Club theater, which houses two studios, three exhibition spaces, a pottery workshop and roof garden. Inside M, the high-ceilinged dining rooms, romantically decked with artsy furnishings (no prizes for guessing the source of these artistic influences) and Paola Dindo murals exude a fresh contemporary feel, and belie its 18-year-old existence. There is no cuisine classification to speak of, as the restaurant prides itself in just serving "good, honest food" – basically a bit of everything, from European to Mediterranean and Scandinavian. But don’t expect to find any of those fusion-style dishes here.