After a 3-year hiatus, this upscale Asian fusion restaurant has reopened in the Vista
Michelle Wang celebrated 25 years in the Columbia food scene on March 4 by reopening one of her favorite restaurant concepts, M Grille.
Wang and her husband Rui Cao owned seven restaurants, including M Grille at 530 Lady St. in Columbia’s Vista, in October 2017 when she decided it was time to close. In the years since, she closed two more restaurants and feels like five is the sweet spot.
Managing seven restaurants in Wang’s signature style proved too much for the restaurateur at the time. After the death of her father that year, Wang decided it was time to have less on her proverbial plate.
She leased the building to another restaurant, Bay Leaf Eclectic Indian Cuisine, for a time and planned to reopen M Grille in 2020. When the pandemic hit, she pushed back the opening to March 2021.
However, this time is different. “Reopening this really put me in a new perspective of how we do the dining experience,” said Wang, who believes opening M Grille on the 25th anniversary of opening Miyo’s, her first restaurant on Main Street, made her think about dining like she did as a young adult.
Taken back to the beginning, Wang said she had the opportunity to re-focus on what matters to her in a restaurant— music, art, superb service and the cleanest ingredients.
“We’re hoping to have a breakthrough to make our restaurants better,” Wang said.
At M Grille, every ingredient will be pan-fried individually, rather than fried in bulk in the same oil like at her other restaurants.Musicians will play every night to add to the upscale ambiance that Wang is creating.
“It’s not about turning tables,” said Wang. “To truly enjoy food is an art.”
Wang spent weeks figuring out the menu with her head sushi chef, Cly Lin. She was partly inspired by Chinese natural cures, especially after the pandemic, Wang said.
After she had COVID-19 last year, Wang treated her symptoms with clean eating and wanted to bring that to M Grille. Most of her recipes are vegetable-heavy, making the menu friendly for many different diets.
Tender lobster rolls with fresh bell peppers and apple, sweet honey glazed strawberries over a flaky tempura shrimp roll and tuna sashimi pizza decorated with radishes, frisee and purple onions are a few of Wang’s favorite new items on the menu at M Grille.
The strawberry honey roll was a customer favorite at the restaurant, Wang said. Her other restaurants, Miyo’s, M Vista and M Kitchen, do not offer the item because of how time consuming it is to create. The roll will return to the M Grille menu, adding a sweet and savory sushi option.
M Grille will also offer weekly entertainment, through Sushi and Shag events on Tuesday nights. Wang partnered with Vista Ballroom Dance to offer shag classes at her M Space next door for customers. Wang said she wanted to support local musicians and businesses as part of her business.
The restaurant is light and airy, with a wall of windows. White tablecloths and vases of flowers cover every table. A huge painting of a 1 Corinthians bible verse in Chinese covers most of the back wall at M Grille. The painting reads: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”
Customers can see the sushi chef and most of the kitchen on the other side of M Grille. A bar fills one corner of the restaurant along with a grand piano.
M Grille is open Tuesday through Saturday from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.
This story was originally published March 29, 2021 at 12:02 PM.
CORRECTION: M Grille is open Tuesday through Saturday. Michelle Wang changed the restaurant’s hours to give herself and her staff Mondays off, she said.
