Singaporean cuisine is entering a new era. Here’s how

In Singapore, food has always been more than sustenance. It’s how we gather, a language we speak across ethnic lines, and a source of national pride. But lately, I’ve been wondering if our dining landscape is entering a more introspective chapter – less concerned with defining “Singaporean food” for the world, and more attuned to what it means to us, here at home.

We used to speak of “putting Singapore on the map”, chasing Michelin stars, proving that hawker fare could sit alongside fine dining. That urgency made sense then, when we were trying to be seen. Now, as we mark 60 years of independence and reflect on who we are, the mood in our kitchens has shifted. Chefs aren’t chasing novelty for its own sake. They’re drawing from memory, heritage and everyday taste with a calm, rooted sense of purpose.

This new phase of Singaporean dining feels less like a quest to prove ourselves, and more like an invitation to understand who we’re becoming.

From preservation to reinvention

The recently refreshed Mustard Seed captures this spirit. Its counter seating may be gone, but in its place is a sense of composure and depth that needs no over-explanation.

With chefs Gan Ming Kiat, Wu Shin Yin and Desmond Shen leading a larger, seasoned team, the restaurant feels emblematic of a generation coming into its own. Their cooking isn’t about reinvention for reinvention’s sake, but about reflection on taste, heritage and identity. That’s what makes contemporary Singaporean dining compelling: It no longer tries to define “Singaporean food” but explores, with maturity, who we might yet become through it.

Preservation today can look like renewal. At Bibik Violet, homely Peranakan dishes like hae bee hiam toast, curry chicken noodles and chicken macaroni return to the public table, balancing quality, technique and accessibility. By bridging memory and discovery, Singapore’s grande dame of Peranakan cuisine, Violet Oon, ensures that her new all-day cafe preserves by sharing.

Pastaro, founded by Mod-Sin pioneer Willin Low, treats identity as practice, feeling out how we prefer to eat at home now. Think har jeong pork belly fritters with a cincalok-spiked, spicy-sour dip, and handmade pastas cleaving to flavours we grew up with: buah keluak spaghetti, Hokkien mee pasta – all rendered with craft, not gimmick. It’s an everyday invitation to blend memory with what travel and porous borders have taught us to love.

Chef Hafizzul Hashim, a champion of modern Southeast Asian cuisine, founded Fiz to bring fine-dining clarity to heritage flavours and time-honoured techniques. Evocative menus channel childhood memory and communal eating, while sourcing from small producers across the region. Modern but never amnesiac, his explorations are rigorous without rigidity.

At Pangium, Malcolm Lee – the chef behind Candlenut, the world’s first Michelin-starred Peranakan restaurant – explores contemporary Straits flavours, reviving long-quiet recipes and offering considered interpretations drawn from Malay, Chinese, Indian, Peranakan and Eurasian roots. The team’s cooking feels intimate and studied, a reflection on lineage and taste.

The future of Singapore cuisine

If there’s one thing that unites Singaporeans, it’s that we care deeply about food – not just eating it, but talking about it, documenting it, even arguing over it.

The response to food historian and author Khir Johari’s The Food of Singapore Malays (2021) and, more recently, the second edition of Serumpun: Tasting Tradition, Telling Tales shows how ready our community is to think about food as more than sustenance or nostalgia. His work bridges history and lived experience, tracing how traditions travel, mingle and adapt.

That same curiosity stretches across every layer of our dining culture – from home kitchens and hawker stalls to cafes, restaurants and bars. It reveals a collective desire to understand who we are through what we cook, serve and savour together.

Across the island, chefs, cooks, restaurateurs and makers are finding their rhythms. That work takes time. Let’s hold space for young talents still iterating and finding themselves, often outside positions of leadership.

We all start from small seeds. Naming what the gut feels and the imagination tastes isn’t instant. Getting lost, even failing, is how we get there. All of this points to a quiet growing confidence – a dining landscape that comfortably navigates continuity without stasis, and innovation without swagger.

We’re done with preserving who we are behind museum glass cases. We’re back at the stove, feeding a living table that belongs to all of us.