Nature & Nurture

Through wholesome food seasoned with the flavours of her childhood, Plentyfull founder and owner Claudia Sondakh is on a mission to inspire a new era of conscious dining,

- Zara Zhuang

FOODIE AND RESTAURATEUR Claudia Sondakh was admittedly precocious as a child. “I was the pickiest eater,” she confesses. “When I was little, I had a tricycle I would cycle around in the living room [during meal times] and I’d eat one spoonful of food for each round — that was how bad it was.” Even her childhood aversion to sushi was overcome by a moment of fierce competitiveness, rather than encouragement from her father, Indonesian businessman Peter Sondakh of the Rajawali Corporation. “My dad always told me, You have to try everything at least once and he wanted me to taste sushi, saying I was missing out on the best thing ever,” Sondakh recalls. She finally gave it a shot at age 10, only because she was out for dinner with family friends and she saw their four year-old eating sushi like a champ. “I felt like I was being a wuss for not trying it, so I went for the sushi,” she says. “And when I tasted it, I thought it was the best thing ever.”

Now far more adventurous when it comes to food, Sondakh counts ice cream, pizza and pungent, runny unpasteurised cheeses as a few of her indulgences. But her passion lies more with educating diners on the possibilities of wholesome cuisine. After all, the svelte 39-year-old is the force behind Plentyfull, the 132-seat, 4,000-sq-ft restaurant in Millenia Walk that was launched in August. Bringing together a brasserie, a patisserie and the local gourmet grocer Little Farms, the dining concept has trained its focus on presenting healthy, flavourful dishes suited to the Asian palate.