The unsung beauty of tropical food, ingredients and flowers come together at Senang Supper Club

On a Friday evening last June, a stylish crowd gathered up a flight of stairs to a lofty dining room in the unlikeliest of locations. On the second floor of a downtrodden industrial building in Kembangan, dramatic bushels of saffron-hued king coconuts and ixoras sprawl the length of a grand dining table upon which would later heave with platters of lesser-known dishes from the Southeast Asian canon.

“These dinners are a way to bring my work to life,” said the cook and food author Bryan Koh, who, together with John Lim, founder of luxury botanical studio This Humid House, has created one of the most sought-after and certainly the most stylish, supper clubs in Singapore.

Lim conceived Senang Supper Club, which takes its name from its location, in June 2023. “We knew we would have the weekends free in August because it’s the Hungry Ghost month and there are no weddings (to decorate). There was also a perfect alignment of a few things — we’d just moved into a new space with a huge table in the middle and we had… somewhat of a pantry,” he remembers of the time.

“I’ve always respected Bryan and his work. I’ve always thought about how I could collaborate meaningfully with him and really showcase his work. The timing was right, and it all came together very quickly.”

As cook and florist, Koh and Lim’s vocations are considerably different, existing in parallel worlds that might, perhaps, collide in the aesthetics of a dining room. But dig a little deeper and it becomes apparent that what their work has in common is the deep desire to celebrate things overlooked in the tropics.

Koh’s books, including Milkier Pigs and Violet Gold: Philippine Food Stories and Bekwoh: Stories and Recipes from Peninsula Malaysia’s East Coast, spotlight the unsung cuisines of Southeast Asia. Lim’s gorgeous arrangements at This Humid House are born from tropical botanicals both elevated and sentimental.

“If you think about it, what we do at This Humid House is discover regional ingredients albeit in a visual format,” said Lim, whose floral centrepieces have included purple sweet potatoes and artfully bundled roots of red spinach. “So with the supper club, it’s a very simple mission: In the same way that we honour plants and flowers from the region, we are devoted to celebrating regional cooking.”

At every dinner, the breathtaking water lilies, lotus buds, cacti, or giant banana stalks that float across the table are accompanied by dishes like laab nua, a Lao salad of beef, roasted glutinous rice, and a litany of herbs dressed in a fermented fish paste known as padek, or beef adobo lush with chunks of shin stewed in vinegar and soy sauce to spoon-tenderness.

When I dined there, the first course of naem pa, a delicious Lao confetti of flaked fish, crushed rice crackers, banana blossom, long beans, mint and peanut brittle opened the palate for more comforting dishes like kulawong talong — eggplants stewed in roasted coconut milk with green mango, fiddlehead ferns and salted duck eggs. A hush fell over the dining room every time a course was served, an irrefutable testament to the marvellous food.

Held at least once a month, these dinners are booked out almost as soon as reservations open. “When we started last August, we were supposed to do just twice a month, but because of demand, we did more,” Koh said. “As of February, I think we’ve done 28 dinners, which is,” he paused, “more than we’d planned.”

Art gallery owner Stephanie Fong, who’s attended the supper club twice, said, “What I love about these dinners is that they celebrate Southeast Asian cuisines that are somewhat overlooked. The food is well-cooked and presented without too much affectation. Then there are the tablescapes created by This Humid House. There is an otherworldliness about the whole experience but also a homely charm. Invariably, you meet like-minded people, and it’s always a convivial evening.”

Lim is now looking for new talents to work with, cooks with an “original voice” to convey a celebration of the unique hybridity of Singapore’s food. “I’m particularly interested in Eurasian food, which I think is enormously fascinating. But even something as simple as Hainanese western food, but done in a serious way, I think could be very interesting as well.”

Naturally, Koh will remain a large part of the supper club. “We’ve had this supper club long enough that it’s evolving into something truly original and wonderful,” Lim continued. “What’s really nice to see is that Bryan’s food is evolving too. In the first menus, he was quite nerdy about it and talked about what the dish should be from a traditional standpoint and how he’d, maybe, thickened the sauce.

“Now, he’s like, ‘I’ve done this because I feel like it’ or ‘this is a bit Teochew’, or he might make up a new name for a dish. I think it’s looser… more playful and confident.”

Between cooking for the supper club, Koh is working on a new edition of his book Mornings Are For Mohinga, Regional Burmese Cookery, scheduled for release in late October. “This book contains 12 years of research material,” he said. He continues to oversee research and development for Chalk Farm, the cake shop he co-founded with his sister Dawn, and is working on another book about Lao food.

Tickets to Senang Supper Club sell for S$196 per person.