Beyond the Plate

Your ticket to cerebral dining experiences lies in these chef visionaries whose novel culinary philosophies birth riveting bites that tickle not only the palate but also the brain 

- Dawson Tan

THE PURSUIT OF FULFILMENT

Zor Tan is one who lets his cooking do the talking in a culinary world sprinkled with big personalities and luminaries. Everything the young chef ever came across in life helped shape the "Circle of Life", a personal philosophy held up by nine guiding principles that influence his contemporary cross-cultural cooking at restaurant Born. "I often think of how every ending has a new beginning; that our lives from beginning till the end are a continuous full circle; and in nature, we're all interconnected," shares Tan. Seen through this prism of principles, which includes shades of his decade-long career in elite French kitchens as well as personal milestones, his episodic menus weave in storied plates that balance both French and Asian gastronomy.

For instance, pigeon is presented as a highly conceptual plate alongside pearl corn, semi-dried tomatoes, and grains of barley and sunflower seeds. Visually, it depicts a pigeon eating grains in a corn field, but on a deeper level, Tan intends to challenge the palate with a protein that is not commonly enjoyed in Singapore.

BACKGROUND CHECK