In 1996, Michelle Garnaut and her team arrive with a load of supplies to open a pop-up. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Garnaut pushed through those and other surprises during her 10-day kitchen takeover, however, because she was eager to see what it would take to manage a restaurant in the mainland's most international city.

"I was participating in a series of parties that would lead up to the June 1997 handover of Hong Kong," she says. "We did one in Beijing and then Shanghai before the finale in Hong Kong."

The Shanghai stop was at the Peace Hotel, and Garnaut saw a chance to test the waters.

"So I asked the manager there if I could come to the restaurant sometime and cook," she says.

"He looked at me blankly and said, 'Can you cook?'"

Garnaut explained that her Hong Kong restaurant had been winning awards since 1989 and that she "knew a bit about cooking".

The manager went for the idea, and Garnaut began to prepare for a 10-day stint at the hotel: Dec 5-15, 1996.

For starters, that meant a mind-boggling 500 kilograms of luggage.

"We had a checklist like you've never seen," she says, laughing. "Things were just not available then like they are today.

Her team packed sugar. Vanilla pods. Passion fruit. Flowers ("A huge box of amaryllis－a brilliant choice, as it turned out, because the buds were just about to open when we arrived in Shanghai"). Coffee. A case of cream. A case of wine.

"We brought our own tablecloths－and even knives. There were none for the tables there," she says. "The forks－not many－were locked in a safe. We flew in more forks at the last minute. DHL loved us by the time it was over."