A SEAT AT THE ABLE

The city's most sociable foodie on the pleasures that consume him

- Annette Tan

Over the past decade, much of Singapore’s dining scene has been defined by Instagram. Not only in the sense of the camera eating first, but in the intriguing way that microcommunities have formed around the act of dining in the city’s hottest eateries. Through Instagram, middle-aged foodies have met and formed tight-knit friend groups who migrate, like hungry nomads, from eatery to new eatery, in search of ripe pastures.

If one were to plot members of these ravenous groups in a Venn diagram, the data sets would show a particular name appearing in the intersecting circles. Chan Kwai Sum—or @chanksters as he is often known by his Instagram handle—is arguably the city’s most ardent, sociable foodie. Scroll through your feeds and there he is at supper with chefs such as Labyrinth’s Han Li Guang and Euphoria’s Jason Tan. Here he is at Dick Lee’s birthday party, at Lee’s performance in Tokyo, at actress Michelle Chong’s birthday dinner, eating his way through Ipoh with well-known foodies such as Wong Ah Yoke, at dinner with society friends Marilyn Lum, Tan Min-Li and Iroshini Chua. He is at every new restaurant, every private dining experience and at numerous charity events.

Social nomad though he may be, Chan remains an enigma. Most people know that he is a private investor. We know that he loves food, loves hanging out with different groups, and that he eats more than a few meals a day with different people. But who is he? How did he quietly stake his prominent place in foodie society?