Cooking Up A Storm

Despite their professional culinary backgrounds, these savvy chefs have found their calling at hawker stalls

- Kenneth SZ Goh

Mention Singapore and hawker food inevitably gets woven into conversations. The deliciously diverse food, which can be found in hundreds of hawker centres and coffee shops, reflects the country’s multicultural identity. While hawker culture is much celebrated, a cloud of uncertainty looms over its future as young people are reluctant to pick up the trade, which is notorious for its long hours, arduous work and slim profit margins. Despite the challenges, some have taken on the hawker route with their exuberant enterprising spirit, from serving up fresh ideas of operating their business to preserving heritage flavours. Meet three young hawkers who are injecting new life into the time-honoured trade.

TIEN JIA CHEN

DUKE OF CONGEE

Having spent five years schooled in culinary arts, Tien Jia Chen had his heart set on working his way up the Michelin-starred restaurant ladder for the first five years of his career before starting his own restaurant. However, the Covid-19 pandemic sent his career plans into a tailspin, as restaurants faced dining restrictions and scaled-back operations. Undaunted, the enterprising 25-year-old shifted gears and opened a hawker stall in a nondescript coffee shop near Bedok Reservoir in January this year.

Focusing on the perennial comfort food, Duke of Congee serves 20 varieties of congee with an extensive assortment of toppings, from pork meatballs and snakehead fish to seafood.

Opening a hawker stall was an unexpected detour for Tien, who graduated from The Culinary Institute of America’s Singapore campus last October. He recalls: “When I was studying, the image of a hawker was not as prestigious as working in restaurants; it was something associated with the older generation.”