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Singapore
This Week in AsiaLifestyle & Culture

Can Singapore cuisine become as popular as Chinese, Japanese and Thai food in the West?

  • Anthony Bourdain and Crazy Rich Asians have given Singapore’s melting-pot cuisine a boost in the US
  • The only barrier to exporting the island’s food to the world is a fearless entrepreneurial spirit, says veteran food critic KF Seetoh

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A bowl of laksa served by Makan Place at a US pop-up event in San Francisco. Photo: Handout
Alison de Souza

Singaporean cuisine has long been the darling of cosmopolitan, well-travelled foodies – including more celebrity chefs than you can shake a fork at, the late Anthony Bourdain its loudest champion.

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But despite this cachet – as well as Singapore’s Unesco heritage list status and the occasional Michelin star for its street food – the island’s polyphonic, melting-pot cuisine remains fairly niche abroad.

Even in places with sizeable Singaporean expatriate populations – San Francisco, New York and London – one finds only a handful of eateries serving this or its close cousin, Malaysian food.

But now, a handful of chefs and entrepreneurs in the United States are testing if Singapore’s food can become mainstream globally – and perhaps as ubiquitous as Chinese, Japanese, or Thai.

In California’s Bay Area, the pandemic last year seeded two Singaporean food pop-ups, whose owners say they owe some of their success to the 2018 movie Crazy Rich Asians putting the country and its food on the map.

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In Las Vegas and New York City, there are two new food halls featuring Singaporean hawker brands – the latter a project dreamt up by Bourdain that will finally open its doors early next year.

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