Inside Singapore’s private kitchens, where chefs share their food, culture and personalities
- The private dining scene in Singapore is flourishing thanks in part to a government initiative to foster small, home-based businesses
- We talk to seven private kitchen chefs relishing the opportunity to let their creativity run free and tell the stories behind what they serve
As a founding member of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, classical violinist Lynnette Seah may seem an unlikely ambassador for Peranakan cuisine, a truly fusion cooking style developed over centuries by Straits-born Chinese. Yet it is a role she has embraced.
Seah was also one of the pioneers of private dining in Singapore, she says, when she opened Lynnette’s Kitchen at her home in the hip Tiong Bahru neighbourhood in 2014.
Today, thanks in part to a government initiative to foster small, home-based businesses, the private dining scene in Singapore is flourishing and reflects the cosmopolitan nature of the city state.
“I am a self-taught cook with a sensitive palate and good memory for taste, which helps when I recreate my mum’s traditional flavours,” says Seah, a winner of Singapore’s Cultural Medallion. “She is the main inspiration for my cooking.”
The primary characteristics of Peranakan cuisine, according to Seah, are its unparalleled range of spices and other ingredients, including lemongrass, turmeric, tamarind, palm sugar, candlenut and coconut milk.
“The trick of pulling off Peranakan flavours is in balancing the spices with sour, sweet and savoury flavours, which makes it the most complex of all cuisines, in my opinion,” she says.