This Singaporean chef used to dislike even garnishes in his prawn noodles. Now he uses as many as 18 ingredients in one dish

As a student, Yew Eng Tong loved art and scored well in technical subjects at school that involved tinkering with objects. He could have chosen any creative metier. Fortunately for us foodies, he chose to be a chef.

After being based in Hong Kong’s Facebook office for four years as its executive sous chef, the Singaporean is now back home as the executive chef and general manager of one-Michelin starred Alma by Juan Amador.

With Singapore’s fine-dining landscape flooded with similar options, Yew’s eight-course tasting menu is one of the best places to splash out S$250 on a meal. The deft interplay of textures, flavours and acidity in his modern European menu with Asian accents make for a sensory wonderland, not to mention much gawking at the aesthetic plating in between mouthfuls.

The opening snacks already gave a good idea. Firstly, they aren’t tiny morsels. It took two bites to demolish the pretty tartlet, which was a riot of flavours comprising raw cauliflower and creme, seafood marinated with white shoyu, fried white kombu, salty fingers, cresses and crispy arctic char skin. Its compatriot was a potato gratin takoyaki with pink garlic cream and black garlic, which was adapted from an entry that Yew once prepared for a Bocuse d’Or competition.

The bluefin tuna brioche was a mini art installation comprising a grilled squid ink brioche base, layers of tuna tartare in smoked mayonnaise and truffle parfait, and a potato crisp shaped like a fish skeleton perched precariously at the top. I deconstructed mine with much reluctance, marvelling at how the elements held their own yet played beautifully off each other.

As a teenager, Yew helped at his father’s soya bean drinks stall in Bedok and learnt how to make bean curd. But at 16 years old and raring to see the world, “I didn’t want to be like my dad because his circle of friends was small; I wanted a bigger circle of friends.”

Ironically, he would go on to carve a career in the very same industry.  He was the opening chef for Resorts World Sentosa’s Ocean Restaurant, working closely with American celebrity “Iron Chef” Cat Cora to launch the farm-to-table inspired menu in 2013. He also had a stint at German chef Christian Bau’s three-Michelin star Victor’s Dining, where he regularly fronted their Asian popups, including one at Michelin-starred Italian restaurant Noi in Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong.

Yew wants diners to leave Alma feeling they have tasted something unique and unlike anything they’ve tried elsewhere. He said: “I want to use whatever I’ve learned from competitions and my culinary journey to do more complex items and give a different experience.”.

The arctic char dish is a testament to the extent he would go. The fish is smoked-brined before it is rolled up and cooked sous vide. It is then wrapped in layers of pickled radish and sushi vinegar jelly into a roulade before being cut into slices. The painstaking process takes three hours and is prepared every two days by Yew and his team of seven chefs. The final dish is served with a watermelon and passionfruit salsa and a dollop of N25 caviar and passionfruit gel.

From the dishes’ complexity, no one would believe that Yew, a graduate from Shatec, Singapore’s industry school for culinary and hospitality talents, initially preferred his food to be simple. Now he can effortlessly meld up to 18 ingredients in a dish, as he did with the arctic char.

He chuckled as he recalled: “I didn’t like local food like prawn noodles to have garnishes like fried shallots, garlic, spring onion, coriander and tau-gay (bean sprouts). But when I was in Shatec, I learnt that all these garnishes were essential — the food doesn’t taste good without them.”

Watching chef Bau often working 15 to 20 ingredients harmoniously into one dish challenged him to achieve the same, to the point that “I’ve tried to work with fewer ingredients, but when you start creating, you realise something is missing here and there, and you end up with more”. A 2016 stint at Dutch chef Sergio Herman’s Antwerp restaurant The Jane spurred him further. He remarked: “It was a 90-seater restaurant that served extremely refined dishes requiring complex prep work. It was eye opening to see such a high level of cooking executed at such volume.”

Nothing pleases him more than seeing Alma’s guests finish everything on their plates. His other fulfilment is nurturing a generation of chefs who embrace discipline and team spirit while pushing culinary boundaries.

The modest, unassuming man is very well respected as a mentor and competition chef. In 2012, he beat nine other countries to take home the gold medal at Bocuse d’Or Asia, the first Singaporean to do so. He captained the Singapore National Culinary Team to victory at the 2014 Culinary Olympics in Germany and mentored the Singapore National Junior Culinary Team for the International IKA Culinary Olympics in February 2024, the oldest, largest and most diverse international culinary arts competition in the world. The team eventually took home silver and gold in the Restaurant of Nations and Junior Chef’s Table categories respectively.

He has no qualms passing on everything he has learnt and believes that real leadership in the kitchen goes beyond excellent cooking. He said: “Sharing is very important for skills and knowledge to be passed down. But leadership in the kitchen is discipline, doing what you preach and treating people with kindness.”