[Photo by Gao Erqiang/China Daily]

In 2004, he bought the canteen of a five-star hotel in west Shanghai and turned it into his first restaurant. In less than a decade, it became popular with the city's middle-aged newly affluent and the traditionally rich.

"The only reason that I got into the industry is ignorance. My only experience is being a diner," he says. During his early years as a trader, most of his business was done at dining tables in Cantonese restaurants with folks from Guangzhou and Shenzhen, cities that had been among the first in the country to open up to the world.

A salesperson from Bao's company notes that the restaurant's most frequent customers recharge their prepaid cards as much as 1 million yuan each time.

"They eat like me, so they trust what I feed them," says Bao, when asked how he's won the hearts and wallets of some of the city's wealthiest locals.