In the eyes of many, being a chef is a thankless and unpromising chore all day in a sweltering kitchen, covered in grease and sweat.
Yang Kaixiang, a 29-year-old local chef in Singapore, chose to face the difficulties, ignoring the doubts of those around him, and started a career with his own hands, proving with actions that this road is not just a dream.
Singapore Eye exclusively interviewed Yang Kaixiang, founder of Chez Kai's private dining restaurant. From him, we may be able to see the epitome of Singapore's younger generation of entrepreneurship.
Coming from a family of dignitaries, at the age of 21, Yang Kaixiang gave up his local opportunity to study and resolutely went to France to learn cooking and pastry making at le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Paris. After graduating, he interned for a year in a restaurant in Paris before returning to Singapore in 2016.
After returning to Singapore, he did not accept the work arranged by his family, but continued to work in different well-known restaurants.
After a while, he realized that he worked in a restaurant, just doing repetitive dishes under the set menu every day, and there was no room for self-play. So in 2018, he decided to leave the restaurant and start his own business.
In 2019, he founded a private restaurant called Chez Kai, "Chez" means at home in French, so Chez Kai is "Kai's home". He turned his home into a restaurant where guests could dine in the comforts of home, paired with the cuisine of his own neo-bistro.
Singapore's food culture is highly inclusive, and the delicacies of the Michelin star can be either a few dollars a piece of meat noodles in the hawker center or a high-end French restaurant with hundreds of per capita.
Singapore's restaurant industry is also very competitive, and if you want to retain customers, you must taste delicious and be innovative.
Yang Kaixiang changed the original way of cooking, combining the ingredients and cooking techniques of French cuisine with the ingredients of Chinese and Japanese cuisine to create a "new style of French cuisine".
In addition to a few specific dishes, Yang Kaixiang will launch seasonal dishes every month, and will also tailor exclusive menus for customers.
His sea urchin casserole is particularly popular with customers.
This dish uses 3-4 seasonal fresh sea urchins and a burnt pot mixed with the rice. Served with homemade sauce made from sake and sea urchins, the whole bowl of sea urchin rice takes on an appetizing bright orange-yellow color.
Another favorite dish is smoked fish.
After 2 days of air drying, secretly seasoned imported Japanese fish is smoked and grilled, accompanied by Cantonese fish sauce and broccoli puree made from fish bones, as well as homemade sauerkraut.
The mysterious "private restaurant"
In recent years, more and more private dining restaurants have emerged in Singapore. The more intimate dining environment is a whole new experience for diners. For start-ups in the catering industry, such a light business model can also reduce the burden of operation.
Under the epidemic situation, Yang Kaixiang also began to adjust his business model, going out of the kitchen at home to provide customers with door-to-door cooking services.
Yang Kaixiang said that many familiar customers have asked if they can go to their home to cook. Today, the number of customers that can be welcomed every day is greatly reduced, and if you operate according to the model of previous years, you may not be able to sustain it.
The impact of the epidemic on all walks of life is different, but for the catering industry, it may be a dimensionality reduction blow.
But Yang Kaixiang said that he is still insisting, and believes that time can prove everything, as long as they do their duty well, I believe that everyone will one day realize that Singaporean chefs are not so lazy and can't afford to suffer.
During the epidemic period, Yang Kaixiang also has more time to focus on improving the quality of dishes, and will go to some famous restaurants to dine on weekdays, analyze the dishes, and then re-study after returning home, and use this as inspiration to develop new dishes.
"I believe that only by combining creative cuisine with local elements and increasing customers' recognition of Chez Kai can we stand out from the new restaurants."
If you're interested, check out the details at https://chezkai.com or go to the Instagram https://www.instagram.com/chezkaisg/ to catch a glimpse of the variety of cuisines.