Exploring the history and significance of Singapore’s first independent fine-dining restaurant, in the words of the people who led the restaurant
Sitting across from us, in the private dining room that allows guests a direct view into the kitchen, chef Sebastien Lepinoy wants to make something expressly clear. “Les Amis is not an institution. I hate that term. Once you call something an institution, it doesn’t move; it doesn’t change.”
And yet, as we speak to others for this story, the term is constantly used. How else are people meant to describe a restaurant that celebrates 30 years of continuous operations and, that is, for all intents and purposes, the country’s first independent fine-dining restaurant.
Les Amis opened on March 15 in 1994, but its roots trace back to 1983 when Desmond Lim, a young stockbroker, deepened his wine passion through the Draycott Wine Club, the now legendary wine appreciation group led by one of Singapore’s most famous pioneer wine collectors and writers, Dr NK Yong. A gastronomic tour of France in 1984 inspired Lim to emulate Europe’s independent fine-dining ethos in Singapore.
Singapore’s restaurant scene, now a global culinary destination with approximately 5,400 restaurants, was markedly different in the late 1980s. Western fine-dining was then predominantly housed within five-star hotels. The big names back then were places such as Le Restaurant de France at Le Meridien, Latour at Shangri-La, Fourchette at Mandarin Oriental, Maxim’s at Regent, and Harbour Grill at Hilton.
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Wanting to start Singapore’s first independent fine-dining restaurant meant finding the right partners. Enter Ignatius “Iggy” Chan and Justin Quek, two ambitious and talented friends, former classmates and former colleagues. “I first met [Lim] when he began visiting Fourchette,” shares Chan, who was the restaurant’s sommelier at the time. “We got to know each other because Desmond had a taste for La Tâche 82 [referring to the 1982 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche Grand Cru]. Back then, we sold it for $300. Today, you can’t even get it for $3,000. Well, he drank up all of the stock that we had.” Over wine, of course, Lim discovered that Chan’s ambition was to open his own small restaurant one day. The big question for Lim was, “Do you have a chef?”
In 1991, a 28-year-old Justin Quek faced a crossroad: spend his $40,000 life savings on a motorcycle, or a trip to France. A fruit seller’s son who didn’t complete secondary school, Quek trained at Mandarin Oriental Singapore and was sponsored by them to attend Shatec, the country’s only hospitality school at the time, with fellow trainee Chan. Post-graduation, he worked at The Oriental, Bangkok for a year, then at Mandarin Oriental Singapore’s Fourchette under chef Bertrand Langlet. Quek later became the head chef at Delifrance Bistro, following Langlet.
After two years at Delifrance Bistro, Quek made that seminal trip to France. He spent a year there, working at some of the most iconic restaurants at the time; he also went to London to train under Michel and Albert Roux at Le Gavroche. Upon returning to Singapore, he landed an almost unheard-of position, as personal chef to the ambassador at the French embassy.
By the time Chan arranged for Quek to cook for Lim, the young chef had already settled upon his style of cuisine. Reflecting back on those first impressions, Lim says, “Justin’s food immediately stood out. It was light, refreshing and delicious. I still remember the first dish. It was a carpaccio of lightly marinated salmon with crunchy vegetables. It was so deceptively simple, flavoured with salt, orange and lime juice. You have to understand, back then no one was cooking like this.”