CHEF MALCOLM LEE

Over the course of his career as a chef and restaurateur, Malcolm has come to believe that it is important to study history and tradition from today’s perspective. At Candlenut, he has earned recognition for preserving the essence of heritage dishes from Singapore’s Peranakan community. His second restaurant, Pangium — Malcolm’s tasting-menu only restaurant nestled in the Singapore Botanic Gardens — is about a desire to develop enduring contemporary dishes that reflect the flavours Singaporean palates today connect with and love. It is an exploration of what he calls “the food we grew up eating through a contemporary lens”.

“I hope to go further than just being local,” he explains. “If you delve deeper, there’s so much culinary knowledge that spans across generations and beyond the borders of Singapore. This rich regional archive of instinctive knowledge inspires me to ask questions, to discover the why and how we do the things we do — before it’s too late.”

Today, his vision of Contemporary Straits anchors his culinary approach. “I see Contemporary Straits — the culinary language we’re beginning to articulate at Pangium — as an acknowledgement of how the food Singaporeans know and love relates with the heritage cuisines of our region,” he explains. “They are interconnected in so many ways. For one, historically, the Straits of Malacca has connected Singapore with the rest of the world.”

He believes that diners today are beginning to wonder how things were done in the past and why. However, he is also convinced that our heritage does not determine our future. “This is not a sentimental attempt at preserving or restoring the past,” the chef says. “At Pangium, we ask ourselves: how would we do it if we were to approach the same dish with a similar mindset as the people who first created it,
but prepare it in the context of today so that diners today can hopefully connect with it.”

Nursing a passion for cooking since he was a child, Lee took the unconventional route of going to university, before embarking on culinary training at the At-Sunrice Globalchef Academy. But unlike many of his peers who went on to work in the kitchens of well-known restaurants, he opened his maiden restaurant, Candlenut Kitchen, in a small shophouse in Neil Road in 2010.

Over the past 13 years, Candlenut has grown to be recognised for its take on Peranakan cuisine. The restaurant received a Michelin star for the first time in 2016 and is the first Peranakan restaurant in the world to be recognised by the internationally revered guide with a star.

Malcolm asserts that his cuisine is an evolving one. “Pangium represents a coming of age for me. It is very much part of my personal journey as a chef and as a Singaporean. I feel that my cuisine — my identity — is an ongoing work in progress as it draws from our shared past — histories, cultures, traditions, and ways of living.”