Cover Po restaurant offers Singaporean cuisine, including this quintessential popiah in Singapore restaurants (Photo: Po)
Po restaurant offers Singaporean cuisine, including this quintessential popiah in Singapore restaurants (Photo: Po)
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Singapore’s food culture has always been shaped by exchange. Today’s generation of chefs is continuing that tradition, drawing on global experience while returning to the flavours that first defined them
Food culture in Singapore has never existed in a silo, nor has it ever belonged to a single cuisine. It has always been in motion—shaped by geography and by the many communities that have called the country home, bringing with them the influences of their own culinary traditions. Throughout the nation’s history, recipes have crossed oceans, ingredients have evolved through cultural exchange, and family dishes have shifted across generations. Every plate carries a trace of somewhere else, even as it remains deeply rooted here.
That legacy suits the current generation of Singaporean chefs. Many spent years sharpening their skills in demanding kitchens at home and abroad before defining culinary identities of their own. They move seamlessly between Japanese ingredients, French techniques and Southeast Asian produce. Yet what truly distinguishes their cooking is something harder to pin down: the everyday flavours they grew up eating. Their food is not strictly Singaporean, but neither is it generic international dining. Instead, it reflect a city whose food culture is layered, fluid and never singular.
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Above Willow’s crispy scale amadai
Willow’s crispy scale amadai
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This can be seen in the cooking of Nicolas Tam, executive chef of Willow; Jia-Jun Law, chef-owner of Province; and Frederic Goh, head chef of Po. Each approaches local cuisine from a different angle, yet all three understand that heritage is not simply about recreating familiar dishes. It is about understanding why those dishes have stood the test of time.
For Tam, who trained in the kitchens of Zén and Joël Robuchon, that process begins with memory. Since opening in 2022, Willow has built its reputation on the interplay between Japanese produce and contemporary Asian flavours. Tam’s latest menu, however, turns closer to home, delving into the local Chinese flavours that shaped his childhood palate. “I’m Singaporean Chinese, so it felt natural to start incorporating more of the flavours and ingredients I grew up with and that are close to my heart.”
Those influences surface subtly throughout his menu, particularly in his signature crispy scale amadai, or tilefish, which recalls the shark’s fin soup traditionally served at Chinese banquets. Reimagined for modern diners without the controversial ingredient, the seasonal Japanese fish is cooked in a hot-oil bath to crisp its scales, then served over a rich sauce made with shark’s fin melon, conpoy and Hokkaido snow crab, “It’s not your usual chicken rice with truffles,” Tam quips. “That’s never been my style.” For him, familiarity should arrive with each bite. “I want people to think, ‘I’ve had something like this before’.”
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Above Brioche, burnt sourdough ice cream, kaya at Province
Above Brioche, burnt sourdough ice cream, kaya at Province
Brioche, burnt sourdough ice cream, kaya at Province
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While Tam works on instinct, Law approaches his menu like a puzzle. At Province, he built his concept around Southeast Asia’s biodiversity, but his newest dishes turn inward. Rather than plating recognisable Singaporean classics, he deconstructs them, searching for the precise balance of flavour, texture and aroma that has kept them alive across generations.
One course captures the essence of rojak without resembling it at all: Momotaro tomatoes, botan ebi (prawn) and crisp jambu (rose apple) are brought together with a dressing made from concentrated jambu juice and house-fermented hae kor (shrimp paste). The sweet, savoury and fermented punch of the original hawker dish re-emerges in an entirely new form. Later, kaya toast returns as caramelised brioche paired with burnt sourdough ice cream, egg yolk jam and kaya—a dessert that tastes like breakfast while looking like anything but.
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Above Steamed fish pucuk lemak at Po
Above Steamed fish at Po
Steamed fish pucuk lemak at Po
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At Po, Goh draws from Singapore’s rich tapestry of Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian and Peranakan traditions. Heritage recipes are approached with care rather than nostalgia, refined for contemporary palates while preserving the flavours and stories that have endured across generations. Every dish is rooted in memory, reflecting a cuisine shaped by centuries of cultural exchange. Along the Singapore River, where merchants, migrants and communities once gathered, the kitchen continues that conversation through food.
That philosophy shines in Po’s signature popiah, where an array of ingredients, including jicama, carrot and bean sprouts, is wrapped in handmade wheat skins and finished with a sweet, tangy sauce. Reaching further into the past, the singgang serani (Eurasian fish stew) is given new life: tender mackerel is stewed with aromatic spices and tamarind, then served in a toasted rice shell.
Ultimately, what ties these three chefs together is not a shared aesthetic, but a shared ease with their origins. Their kitchens draw from multiple culinary traditions because Singaporean food was never built around just one. The city evolved through exchange, and its food continues to do the same. Perhaps that is why the most compelling expressions of Singaporean cuisine today do not look like copies of the past. They look like the chefs cooking them: well-travelled, technically accomplished and grounded in flavours that remind them of home.
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Credits
Images: Willow, Po, Province
Dudi Aureus is the senior dining and travel editor at Tatler Singapore, covering the city’s most exciting restaurants, global travel trends, and the personalities shaping the culinary and lifestyle scenes. She also serves as co-jury chair for the Tatler Best awards in Singapore, celebrating the very best in hospitality. When she’s off duty, she can often be found at a favourite hole-in-the-wall Thai spot, savouring a perfectly balanced pad thai.
