The Covid-19 pandemic has left many restaurants closed in the gastronomic enclave, others have learned to thrive in adversity.
Restaurants and bars near Orchard Road in Singapore.
Restaurants and bars near Orchard Road in Singapore.
As the world of restoration from New York to London and elsewhere is slowly reopening, Singapore is a microcosm of disorders and solutions. In this compact city-state of 5.6 million inhabitants are institutions with Michelin stars dressed in white tablecloths, a long-standing circle of family restaurants, pizzerias, Mexican takeaways, the culture of the street vendor known around the world of small specialized stalls: a miniature gastronomic universe. The pandemic hit them all.
The culinary scene, from the maximum not easy to the popular maxim and the cheapest, has suffered dramatically. Vianney Massot, a Michelin-starred place to eat run by a former student of past French superstar chef Joel Robuchon, announced that he was only a few days out of business while looking for a new home because his location on Hongkong Street “is no longer compatible with our vision” in a post-Covid-19 world. Founder Bak Kut Teh, who has been serving red meat bone soup that has been part of his call for more than 4 decades, has made a public appeal to customers, saying sales have fallen by more than 85% and if things don’t change in the next two months, it will be closed.
Government assistance has helped others survive. These measures included hiring assistance and the job assistance program that protects the wages of local employees. The rental exemptions “really helped us get out of trouble,” says Nancy Koh, the “boss” of 328 Katong Laksa, who owns several serving one of Singapore’s iconic dishes.
But creativity and innovation, and mere depression, were also essential. When it came time to reopen, the reduced source chains also had to be restored. Gibran Baydoun, the discoverer of Lucali BYGB, learned that pizza boxes may not be easily purchased in Singapore. “Even [the original] Lucali in Brooklyn had trouble locating boxes, yet I discovered a wholesaler in Las Vegas,” Baydoun says. “They probably gave them from China.” There was also opportunism: rummaging through the remains of restaurants that had closed. Baydoun says, “If not, how are you going to get glassware or 250 forks?”
Social media and the Web have proven to be essential to revive the business. “We started by posting on Facebook, and our delivery has become a feeling overnight,” says Ong Ka Yi, director of Mini Star (HK) Fermented Beancurd, which operates in the Geylang district east of the largely largely closed central business district. . “We never expected the call to be so massive and popular.”
“It’s a double-edged sword,” says Nick Pelliccione, culinary representative at Mia Tavola restaurant. “There were more people online looking to get other people’s attention, but the number of other people who consulted online generated increased demand. Getting looks and attracting attention when everyone is online makes it difficult to differentiate ourselves online. But, he says, “we’ve definitely had more consumers because of that.” Right now, Mia Tavola is largely delivering her specialty, tiramisu.
Ryan Clift embodies the rollercoaster’s trial-and-error learning process. The chef and owner of the Tippling Club, a lively restaurant/bar on Tanjong Pagar Road in Singapore that ranks 17th on Asia’s list of the 50 most productive bars in Asia, saw others in the industry begin offering delivery menus, many of them looking to deliver precisely what they would serve in their restaurants, and look to look exactly the same way, as shown in the images on social media, even in containers of food to take away. Its avant-garde dishes, including wagyu A5 with kampot pepper, spinach and apple wafer; black lime sorbet with garlic oil and coconut; A foie gras cheesecake with blueberries, yogurt, pine nuts and nuts – it was tricky for very productive and not cardboard boxes for delivery. “I wish I could do what I serve in my restaurant, but we learned it wouldn’t be a possibility,” Clift says. “So we went back to our roots in vintage gastronomy.” This meant sandwiches, salads, desserts, Sunday roasts and even their mother’s leek and potato soup.
The Tippling Club had enough cash in the bank to spend bad months, but a pandemic was quite different. Clift called to ask the maximum staff to be absent from the beginning. “I was very emotionally damaged the first week and part because I didn’t see how we were going to succeed over it,” he says. “Knowing what’s in the bank, knowing how much my labor and contract and everything else, I think we were going on to close.”
Clift huddled with chef Ayo Adeyemi and head waiter Andrew Loudon to locate the way forward. While he and Adeyemi were in the kitchen preparing dishes, Loudon developed an Internet platform to make the delivery. They had contacted takeaways online weeks before closing, Clift said, after making plans for the crisis. But I hadn’t won any answers. Then they left alone. “Our first week of delivery was a terrible crisis to the point that I was breaking dishes and making a lot of noise in the restaurant,” Clift says. Only 3 of them controlled day-to-day operations, compared to more than 20 employees.
But it’s improved. For the fourth week, everyone returned to the place to eat to help. Clift had already won the rental assistance of its owner, and the government also provided rental assistance. Alcohol corporations also helped: Tippling had partnerships or sponsorships with Rémy Martin, Rémy Cointreau, Beam Suntory, Pernod Ricard and Bacardi.
Delivery cocktails were “huge,” says Clift. Tippling added a giant ice dice with an order of drinks like a Negroni. He also revived a specialty, the Happiness cocktail, with alcoholic gum. “The gum cubs? Seven hundred orders in two months, for a bag of fucking gum bears, and other people paid $10 to deliver them.
The place to eat has organized special occasions. On May 31, a Virtual Tattoo Party was held, where visitors won a bag of tequila, chips, gravy and a T-shirt sent home before a Zoom occasion that included making daisies and even a series of questions. On June 5 and 6, a sake-based masterful elegance was held with a culinary demonstration and on The 4th of July brought a dinner to the truffles. Bartender Loudon has performed several virtual occasions.
Clift has reduced prices by not charging for things provided through sponsors. “Virtual dinners, we may have charged a lot of cash for some of them. You get a bottle of Maker’s Mark or a truffle; all of that is crazy, however, everything has been sponsored and I never rate it sponsored,” he says. “I’m just billing for the overall experience.”
Tippling Club has reached its equilibrium point.
Singapore has now reauthorizeed recovery operations from mid-June, as a component of a slow reopening, again with the risk of covid-19 recovery. Things have not yet returned to pre-hispanic normality, as masks are mandatory for others in public (although they can be taken off if they eat or drink), and restaurants must use social distance in their seats. “We work with our donkeys. We created our own website, our own planning, but we push ourselves to be there as well,” says Clift. “I’m very satisfied with what we’ve won our customers.”
He says the place to eat won a new hearing when it closed, what the government called the virus breaker. People who learned about Tippling through delivery or sometimes now come to eat at the place to eat. He interrupted online orders for a few weeks because staff may simply not physically manage control of the place to eat and the online platform. But it comes back in line with a small variety of cocktails and non-perishable products.
“I wouldn’t say things are exactly back to the general now,” says Nancy Koh of 328 Katong Laksa. “Even though catering is allowed, there are still restrictions on the number of consumers we have in our points of sale due to the social distance between each customer. And with the uncertainty and economic situation in place, many consumers would in fact pay more attention to their spending. »
Clift is involved in Singapore’s growing bar scene, much of which remains closed due to switch restrictions. But it’s positive about the long-term food industry in Singapore. He predicts there will be big adjustments in the next six to eight months. “There’s definitely an organization of established chefs and budding chefs who, I think, have listened to the market and spent the last two months formulating concepts that are great. Some may simply work, others simply thrive, some can be franchises everywhere in the world,” he says. “There’s going to be a little explosion of attractive things happening.”
“At the end of the day,” he says, “restaurants that are artistic can rotate and do well. It’s almost inspiring to stick to the punches.”