A former private chef now delighting taste buds at gastro bar Tempt. We discuss her passion for food, global adventures, and her connection to culinary roots, however deep they may reach.
Hi Candice! Now that you’re the owner of Tempt, how would you like to be addressed?
I guess you can call me the proprietress. But I also like the word creator, because I’m creative.
Does growing up as a theatre kid have anything to do with this? Can you tell? (Laughs)
Well, yes. When I was 14, I did an internship with Singapore Repertory Theatre (SRT), and that’s where I met Gaurav (Kripalani), the current Artistic Director and also my best friend. He and his husband are some of the biggest patrons of the arts scene here today, so that’s how we all still keep our ties with the theatre scene.When I was doing private dining, it was both a dinner and a show. So with Tempt, I think about how I can extend that now to how I welcome guests. It’s my theatre now, I suppose.
That’s so nice. But I read that you were in Germany when you first started to really delve into food — how did you end up there?
I left to Barcelona to live for a little while when I was 25, then came back to Singapore, got back with my ex-boyfriend and moved to Germany for love. But I couldn’t work there because of my visa. Food there was also expensive and not that great, and my ex-partner was a consultant who was mostly gone from Monday mornings to Thursday nights. So I had a lot of free time on my hands and there was nothing much to do except for, well, cooking.
So that was when you first started cooking?
I cooked here and there while studying in Australia, but it wasn’t until I was gifted Thomas Keller’s Bouchon and The French Laundry Cookbook that I got my hands dirty in the kitchen. This was noJamie Oliver or Nigella Lawson; how Keller wrote his books felt like he was talking to you, and I liked that. He also never held back on any secrets that many top chefs do in their recipes, so that was howI started to get into all things weird and wonderful with food.
Did you ever foresee yourself getting into the culinary trade?
I’ve always enjoyed eating, so it was a natural progression. My dad was a Singapore Airlines pilot for many years, and my mom was a flight attendant, so I was always open to trying new flavours. I think that’s why I always had a good palate. Living in Singapore and being involved with professional theatre, extracurricular activities in school and having a helper at home didn’t give me many opportunities to step into the kitchen when I was younger.
I guess that’s also why you really go to the ends of the Earth for food — a true foodie.
Travelling from a young age definitely gave me this strong and lasting sense of wanderlust. The world always seemed so big and Singapore so small, and the food scene then definitely was not quite as it is now. There were so many places to visit and things to taste; I had to experience them all for myself.
But why a private chef from the get-go?
Throughout my life, I’ve had a total of 13 months working with a real boss. It’s not that I have difficulty with authority; I’m just a little out of the box. I also didn’t want the grind. And I knew if I had to grind every day, that would stifle my creativity in many ways. I definitely don’t take for granted the luxury and privilege that I have, being able to afford to go on this route without having to work in a kitchen. I’d go and apprentice for free where I can in restaurants all over the world, especially in Italy. But for me, it was always about creating your own thing, being able to constantly update and do whatever the hell I wanted. I was a bit of an only child. [Laughs]
As I said before, I consider myself a creative, and private dining is similar to theatre in many ways. You’re in front of the client, and you immediately see all the reactions and facial expressions, whether they like it or not or if it’s polarising. I guess this gives me that same buzz I love from being on stage, and that close interaction with the end consumer is what I thrive off of.
Then what led you to start Tempt?
My dad is very wise and has always made good financial real estate decisions, so it was no exception when he bought this black-and-white house in 2004. We used to rent this space out to Clinton Street Baking Company, but their lease came up during COVID, so it was empty for a while. My dad wanted to convert it into a wine bar after retiring, and since I ended up doing food, he asked me for some ideas. However, I was really busy as a private chef during that period, and my food was a certain way. It wasn’t a case of my way or the highway, but I can’t sell something I don’t know enough about. So it took him a few rounds of convincing before I relented, and here we are finally, three and a half months in (at press time), at my brick-and-mortar space.
It must have been quite daunting since you’re opening a restaurant with, technically, little to no kitchen experience despite being in the food industry for a decade.
Exactly! I was a deer in the headlights when I first said yes, which explains why I also took a long time to decide. I was a seasoned solo flyer with a good client base and no overheads when I was a private chef. When the client confirms, you order the food and hire the team. Since I always mix work and play, I would take off from one thing to another. Back then, my parents would never know which continent I was in, but now whenever I go to the restroom, my staff will know. It’s a huge lifestyle change. I’m the only child, single at 40-something with no kids; I’ve been living a Peter Pan life until now.
Even though I’ve been a private chef for many years, I still get imposter syndrome. I never went to culinary school, never worked in a kitchen — how dare I call myself a chef! But I do have a really, really broad knowledge of food. Just November last year, I visited my mentor, Chef Damiano Nigro — from the one-Michelin-starred Relais Villa d’Amelia — for two weeks to learn as much as possible, not just how to cook but also how to manage a restaurant. I’ve gathered a core team that for sure has better skills in the kitchen than I do. So I just needed to learn how to trust my instincts and know I have a solid palate, idea and concept of what I want to put out. I don’t want to be able to recommend just a single dish; I should be proud of everything.
So how should I describe your food to a newcomer?
I’ll say “Cross-culture” because I hate the word “fusion”; it’s so passé and try hard. It’s like saying one thing doesn’t work with the other. “Cross-culture” implies that I’m bringing my background, travel experiences, and Southeast Asian and Cantonese heritage into one. It’s also kind of like how this space looks. It’s raw, bold and unfinished. There’s beauty in the unfinished because you get to seethe history and different incarnations of the place, just like a woman or person embracing their folds and scars that come with age. It’s storied, there’s character, and I love that.
I think that’s exactly what the food scene here needs, something different and more daring. These same words describe many of your exotic or rare ingredients. How do you even find these things?
Pure greed. Thankfully, now in Singapore, we really have access to everything. I struggled to get decent risotto rice, even in Spain. I wanted it that evening and had to search at least seven to eight stores before finding something I could use. We are blessed in that sense. All the ingredients I find are thanks to pure gluttony, making me stick it out.
When I lived in Argentina from 2009 to 2010, I went all the way to a market in Chile because I saw Andrew Zimmern eat this tumour-looking sea squirt or piure in Spanish. I’ve had the Japanese and Korean ones, and they’re not bad, but this one tasted like what I imagine a raw tumour would taste like. It was pretty vile. But I’ll eat it again if I see it because I’m just one of those people.
But how does this work at Tempt? Since food is also a thing of comfort for a lot of people, especially in Singapore.
Well, yes, steak and lamb chops are great. Chicken breasts are good too, but you can eat them everywhere. So my direction to the chef was unless it’s a slightly unusual meat like kangaroo or venison, I don’t want them to touch the primary cuts. I want them to use secondary cuts and offal because I like to eat them as a chef. And I think it’s more interesting that you have to transform it. So the most common meat we serve might be pork belly, but that’s still a secondary cut. That’s why I’m the Gluttonous Temptress, and this is Tempt. There is magic and transformation for us here.
We also use as much of our food waste as possible. One of our signature dishes is deep-fried baby corn with kombu caramelised cream. We have a lot of wastage from the husk and the threads of the corn. So we char the husks and turn them into a vegetable kombu ash that goes inside our self-churned butter and on the kombu crips. As for the threads, we make it into corn syrup and serve it on top of our uni tofu. We really try to use any and everything.It’s never boring here.
So now that you are going to stay put for a while, what is your take on the Singapore food scene today?
The cocktail and food scene in Singapore is really very special. Having travelled so much, the diversity here really is pretty insane. I don’t know how hawkers do it. But extreme food is still one of my favourite things. And we’re so blessed to have that culture as opposed to, just like, fast food. Well, that is our fast food.
But to have so many local eats! Singaporeans may have a lot of differences and a wealth divide we can’t ignore, but the one common factor is that whether you are a billionaire or a cleaner, you all have your favourite hawker centres and stalls. We don’t have football. We have chicken rice. [Laughs] I’ve been to countries like Thailand, where very wealthy people would never eat on the street. But here it’s all for all.
And as lucky as we are to have all of these international groups and chefs coming in to give it a go and to add to the spectacular, wonderful, dynamic variety and choice that we have here, it’s also really nice to see young people getting into the hawker food loop. Returning to your roots is becoming a thing now, so to know that we still honour this food tradition is awesome. We’re lucky we haven’t lost that, and I hope we never do.
Photography Jaya Khidir
Photography Assistant Natalie Dykes
Once you’re done with this interview with Candice Leong from Tempt, click here to catch up with our August 2023 issue!
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