It’s most likely that you’ve eaten a pastry or cake made by Montreux Patisserie. The three-storey kitchen at Senoko Drive produces for Integrated Resorts (IR), luxury hotels, hospitals, schools, country clubs, pantries in corporate offices and restaurants. A total of 100 bakers and cooks ensure 258 different products are baked, assembled, packed and put into 10 delivery trucks that make their rounds three times a day. At the head of this well-oiled machine is Lee Chit Shung, managing director and secondgeneration business owner.
MODEST BEGINNINGS
Jovial and unassuming, Lee had wanted to be a doctor but eventually decided to join the family business after National Service. He remembers when his father, affectionately known as chef Lee Lay, opened a small three-man bakery at East Coast Road alongside his mother in 1995. The latter had spent most of his life working as a pastry chef in hotels, gone on to win awards and led the Singapore Pastry Team to victory in a competition in Lyon.
There, both struggled to make ends meet until they saw there was a demand for dessert and pastry. “Many F&B establishments started to outsource,” he quips. Turns out that was the right call to make as business picked up and the Patisserie moved into a 1,250 square feet factory just five years later. Located in the east, the larger space occupied four store units and housed a production team of 80 people. When the SARS outbreak happened in 2003, they were hit hard as a large part of their income came from supplying to hotels. It’s the reason why Lee now actively seeks for various ways to expand the business.
This story is from the March/April 2020 edition of WINE&DINE.
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This story is from the March/April 2020 edition of WINE&DINE.
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