Cover Acclaimed chef and restaurateur Akmal Anuar (Photo: White Rice Co)
Acclaimed chef and restaurateur Akmal Anuar (Photo: White Rice Co)
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The acclaimed chef and restaurateur builds upon over 30 years of his family’s culinary legacy at his restaurant in Sultan Gate
At 42 years old, chef Akmal Anuar cuts a commanding figure with his tall stature and thick salt-and-pepper curls. In some way, it matches the stature of his formidable culinary career—as a chef, his resumé includes some of Singapore’s finest restaurants, the likes of Les Amis, Saint Pierre and Iggy’s. Now, he owns Dubai-based F&B consultancy firm White Rice Co with his wife Inez Tantyanna, which boasts eight restaurants across the United Arab Emirates—one of them, 11 Woodfire in Dubai, won one Michelin star in 2022—and New York, with more to come.
But sit down with him, as we do in Harummanis, his ninth concept right here in Singapore, and you’ll find someone who jokes just as easily as he drops honest truths about the F&B industry. We find him affable and down-to-earth, which is also fitting—Harummanis is Akmal’s most personal restaurant to date.
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“Homely” is the adjective to describe the restaurant, with its wooden furniture, olive green walls and intricate rugs. The same rustic vibe extends to the food, which stars traditional Malay and Indonesian flavours subtly uplifted with Japanese and European techniques—a product of Akmal’s culinary knowledge compiled across his years of travel and research. Take the ketoprak, a traditional Indonesian salad of tofu and bean sprouts in a peanut sauce. Akmal’s version sees the peanut sauce replaced with a Japanese sesame sauce instead, with the addition of hydrated kombu for an extra savoury touch. Beef rendang here is also not your traditional rendang. “Rendang comes from Sumatra, in a region called Minangkabau,” he explains. For Harummanis’s unique twist to the iconic dish, he has sandwiched tender beef shank rendang within fried mantou baos (buns) in a dish he playfully calls “Minangka-bao”.
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Akmal could have gone the easier route with a Japanese or European restaurant, but for his homecoming in Singapore, it was important for him to set up a halal Malay restaurant. “This has a lot to do with the family, and the continuation of Harummanis’s legacy,” Akmal says. His first priority is the Malay community—with Harummanis, Akmal can claim a “proper” halal restaurant that “champion[s] Malay cuisine”, unlike some other halal restaurants which mainly offer Western dishes.
Akmal’s mission is especially important because, unlike its Chinese or Indian counterparts, Malay cuisine is frequently relegated to the hawker centre. This perception is changing with chefs like Kevin Wong of Seroja and Hafizzul Hashim of Fiz redefining Malay cuisine to a fine dining audience, but Akmal has his eyes on the fine-casual niche. “If I don't succeed, no problem,” he says. “But I hope I inspire somebody to do better than me. Then there’s a purpose.”
Above Batang pinang at Harummanis, featuring beef tenderloin, spicy petis, jicama, and white truffle
Batang pinang at Harummanis, featuring beef tenderloin, spicy petis, jicama, and white truffle
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Harummanis has a heritage that begins with the opening of the original Harummanis, his parents’ eponymous nasi padang hawker stall at Teck Whye Lane in 1992. “It was crazy,” Akmal says of the stall’s unprecedented popularity, and its accompanying manpower crunch. “It was a family thing. Grandmother, grandfather, auntie, whoever could help for that day had to come in.” Akmal, ten years old at the time, was naturally bound to help out at the stall. He hated it, but eventually, he started to build culinary knowledge of Malay cuisine and its flavours—the layering of aromatics, the anticipation of the next step.
It takes a few decades, however, for the present Harummanis to materialise. In fact, Akmal might never even have become a chef in the first place. “I wanted to be a musician,” he confesses with a smile, but after a series of odd jobs in restaurants, he landed a job as a commis chef at the French fine dining institution Les Amis in 2000, then helmed by Justin Quek. “That turned me into a professional chef,” Akmal claims, exposing him to the world of Périgord black truffles, veal, and corn-fed chicken—a world that Akmal continued to make splashes in over the next decade, with stints at Saint Pierre and Iggy’s, where he cooked for late former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew on no less than five occasions.
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Despite his obvious talent, however, Anuar was never quite recognised in the local dining scene. “I never got invited to anything. I never got publicity,” Akmal says. He considers his words for a moment before saying, “Maybe it’s a race thing. Being a Singaporean chef, you’re not celebrated so much. Being a Malay Singaporean chef means you’re in no man’s land.” If few recognised his worth in Singapore, however, people around the world did. Job offers came in from London, Moscow, and finally Dubai, which stuck. He moved in 2014 to helm Pan-Asian restaurant Zengo, beginning a career in and out of Dubai across different restaurants until Akmal decided to call his own shots. In 2020, he founded his F&B consultancy group White Rice Co, which has accumulated a culinary empire spanning Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and New York.
Above Shrimp stir-fried with sambal at Harummanis
Shrimp stir-fried with sambal at Harummanis
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When we questioned why it took so long for him to open Harummanis in his homeland, his initial answer was as self-explanatory as it is funny: “Money, lah.” “I had to pay two months of rent upfront before I even laid a single brick,” Akmal says. The other reason has to do with his family in Singapore. After the pandemic, Akmal’s parents mostly stayed at home, and “after 30 years of going out and meeting people every day, suddenly they looked unhappy”. In 2023, Akmal returned to Singapore and started looking for restaurant spaces after his father asked him if he had any plans to be closer to home. On the last day of his trip, his brother-in-law showed him a derelict spot at Sultan Gate, tucked away in a hidden corner of Kampong Gelam. Two weeks later, Akmal decided to go ahead.
That was October 2023; Harummanis opened its doors a mere two months later. Since December, the restaurant has already been patronised by celebrities and ministers, including artist Najip Ali and the President of Singapore.
For sure, running a culinary empire—one that’s set to expand further in Paris and Dubai—is tiring for anyone, and Akmal is no exception. “But I cannot complain,” he says. Who gets this opportunity knocking on your door?” Previously overlooked, he no longer needs anybody’s validation. “I’m back in my homeland, and after ten years being away … ” He knocks on the table we’re seated at. “This is my table. I bought this table!” he says, a smile blooming on his face. “This is my plate. I bought this plate, it’s mine!” He pauses for a moment before he continues, “It’s a dream. It’s something you work all your life for, and I’m so blessed. I cannot express how this feeling is, it’s so… rewarding.”
Ethan Kan was Tatler Singapore’s dining writer.
