Can I try?
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you!
Chris Kong has cooked for celebrity A-listers and top name chefs like Daniel Humm,
cutting his teeth in some of the world’s most renowned restaurants.
But last year the 32-year-old chef quit the glitz and glamour of Michelin star kitchens for, well, his own.
After working for so many of these great chefs, and doing their kind of food and learning
from them as well, you kind of want to find out, "What’s your style? What does Chris’ food look like?"
Kong is the host of Dearborn Supper Club,
an exclusive private dining experience with a distinctly average setting.
I’ve come to his apartment in the east coast of Singapore to find out
what has got guests queuing up outside his door to pay $100 ahead.
Welcome, guys. Happy Monday!
So, here what we have in front of you is a beautiful congkak board.
So each of these little snacks kind of play a little story about where I’ve worked and
what I’ve done and how I’ve learned and come into Dearborn.
I began my career at a very young age, about 15. My parents actually have an Italian restaurant in Seattle.
So they were the first Chinese to open an Italian restaurant in Washington.
So from there I’ve always been intrigued and
been in the restaurant business and kind of just grew up with it.
Chris started out on a traditional path, going to university to study business, but soon returned to his passion.
Later on, I knew I wanted to expand and travel and learn more and work for the best chefs that I could.
So, after I graduated college I actually bought a one-way ticket and I went to Malaysia.
I worked for an open-air kind of Chinese seafood restaurant to learn about Asian cuisine.
And found himself quickly rising in the ranks.
After Malaysia, I went to Singapore.
I sent my CV to a few restaurants and I got a call back from Guy Savoy.
So that was a different spectrum from what I was coming from.
You describe the cuisine as Modern-American, but you’ve got quite a varied culinary history,
so how do you use those influences?
It’s focused on Modern-American because as a Chinese-American
I grew up in the U.S. and it’s such a melting pot.
The technique that was drilled into me with The NoMad and Daniel Humm and Guy Savoy
was very structured, it was very technique-driven.
And so I try to implement that into my cooking, as well as things that I enjoy eating.
But he’s also given the menu his own sustainable twist, using mainly vegetarian produce, grains and seafood.
We wanted to cook for people the way that we feel that would help the environment as well.
The best feedback is when people come back and are like,
"Oh, I didn’t know that was a vegetable. I didn’t miss the meat."
Chris is one of a growing number of so-called supper club chefs
who are capitalizing on diners’ insatiable appetites for new eating experiences.
It’s a trend that’s taken off in cities from New York to London.
Singapore alone has dozens, with prices ranging from $35 to $105 per head.
So, Chris, you’ve set the pricetag at S$138, that’s about $100. How did you come to that price point?
So, what we did was we actually had a couple of dinners before with some friends, and family
as well, to kind of just gauge where our value would be.
This was the average price point that everybody agreed on.
I wanted to give people the feeling that they were coming to a restaurant,
but just maybe not in the space, in our house.
So you’re getting the same quality of service and food
and there are no shortcuts in anything that we’re going to do.
He currently runs the business full-time, enlisting the help of his wife and sister-in-law.
How does this spread across a week?
So, on Monday I’ll start to order things, look at the inventory, what we need to do.
And if there are any allergies or dislikes and things that I need to consider when I’m ordering the food.
And then on Wednesday and Thursday, I’ll begin prepping.
And then on Friday and Saturday, of course, it’s dinner.
Then on Sunday is the one kind of day off, where we get to relax and spend time with the family.
You really couldn’t fit in a regular job.
Not the normal job, I would say. Not with all this.
And says his business background has certainly come in handy.
This is how you’re making a living now. How does that work for you?
Cooking is one part of it, but I think you need to also understand the cash flow
and all the other little, teeny bits of running a business.
But the benefits from it, it’s more than money. It’s being able to express yourself
and being able to do something that you love to do.
It’s a lot of uphill at first, and then it gets cruising after a while. I hope.