The Gen Z cooks that are revolutionising your favourite dishes

With elbow grease, social media savvy and the help of technology, some Gen Z foodpreneurs are trying to prove they are no “strawberries” and have the mettle to survive the cut-throat world of food and beverage. What drives them to work with their hands, around the clock and with no days off, to start their own food businesses?

Grandma’s recipes gave him winning edge

Fresh out of national service in 2024, 23-year-old Ernest Ang applied for many jobs in F&B but was repeatedly rejected as he had no relevant skills or experience. Intent on going into the sector, he figured the quickest route was to start his own business.

But until then, he had never stepped into the kitchen, not even to whip up a bowl of instant noodles.

Not one to give up easily, he persuaded his 72-year-old Nonya maternal grandmother, Madam Tan Ah Muay, to teach him her recipes.

She had been a hawker selling economy beehoon and Peranakan dishes, such as babi pongteh (braised pork in fermented soya bean), at Whampoa Food Centre for over two decades. She retired to look after Mr Ang when he was five years old. 

Within three months, he set up Kokoyo Nyonya Delights, a 60-seat eatery at Serangoon Central which serves affordable Peranakan fare, starting at $1.50 for a piece of kueh. It opened for business officially in August 2024.

When Mr Ang, an alumni of St Andrew’s Secondary School who has a diploma from Nanyang Polytechnic, told his parents about his intention to go into F&B, there were vehement objections. His father runs a sensor business and his mother works as a secretary at a construction company.

Everyone told him to get a corporate job. But he had zero interest in electronics engineering, which he had studied.

Mr Ang, who admits to having a rebellious streak, says: “I was attracted to the F&B bloodbath as I feel energised by challenges. The more people tell me something is impossible, the more I want to prove them wrong.”

Friends who had joined their families’ hawker businesses told him that the F&B industry is tough, but if he could get winning recipes from his grandmother, half the battle would be won.

But she turned down his pleas to impart her cooking skills. He spent a month visiting her daily at her HDB flat in Potong Pasir, taking two buses from his home in Hougang, to pester her for her recipes.

In the meantime, he tried cooking inchi kabin (Nonya fried chicken) on his own, testing out numerous recipes from YouTube and recipe sites. He recalls: “Every attempt failed miserably. None of what I made tasted anything remotely like my grandmother’s inchi kabin.”

A month later, she relented.

Over the next month, he spent more than $1,000 on ingredients and went to her flat every day to learn to cook her signature dishes of inchi kabin, beef rendang and coconut rice, along with condiments such as sambal. 

Learning to cook beef rendang was the most daunting. His grandmother had a special technique for stirring the rendang continuously so that the spiced coconut gravy would not burn. It took seven ruined pots of rendang over two weeks before he finally caught on.

In July 2024, he found a 680 sq ft unit at Serangoon Central, which housed Lau Wang Claypot Delights before it moved out. It fitted his concept of a casual kopitiam-like eatery offering a tight selection of affordable Nonya food and drinks.

His friends advised him to start small with a hawker stall, which would cost about $20,000 to set up. But Mr Ang wanted a standalone eatery to sell food and drinks unconstrained by hawker prices. 

That cost him about $80,000 in start-up expenses. He came up with half of the amount using his savings from working part-time and dabbling in cryptocurrency. His grandma handed him the rest. 

He says: “She knew my plans and understood the costs as she has run a food business before.” 

He started with a lean team of four – he took charge of cooking, an assistant helped prepare the ingredients and two servers took orders. For the first four months, he worked from 7am to midnight daily.

It was a steep learning curve, from applying for food licence permits to installing an awning for the outdoor area.

He recounts: “Initially, I felt I was in over my head and realised how much experience I lacked. I began to understand why most F&B companies want to hire employees with at least three years of working experience.”

Thankfully, business was brisk from the start. Popular items at the eatery include Nasi Lemak Inchi Kabin which comprises twice-steamed coconut rice with a deep-fried spiced chicken leg, sambal egg, ikan bilis and peanuts ($10.90).

Another crowd favourite is the Nasi Lemak Beef Rendang ($11.90), which features collagen-packed beef shin.

Mr Ang estimates his business may break even in June. He has not drawn a salary and is living on his savings. To save money, he eats two meals a day at his eatery or at home.

He says: “The advantage of starting my own eatery now is that I am young and I have time to fail. I also do not have financial commitments holding me back.”

Still single, he is not looking for a girlfriend as the eatery is his main priority. His work days start at 9.30am and he heads home around 8pm. He has no days off.

Over the past few months, he has expanded his team to eight. With three cooks in the kitchen, he has stepped back from cooking to guide and supervise them. He is also looking to expand menu offerings, by introducing items such as ayam buah keluak. 

His toughest customer is none other than his grandmother. “Up till now, she doesn’t allow us to cook large quantities of food and freeze them for later use. She is fanatical about food quality and I am on the same page as she is.

“What truly motivates me is being able to share a genuine taste of my grandmother’s recipes with customers at Kokoyo.”

Overcoming the lack of culinary experience with technology

At M+ Fried Rice Paradise, a custom-made gear-driven machine rhythmically tosses Thai hom mali rice, vegetables and egg, cooking the fried rice served at the stall. 

Technology brought stall owner Siti Nurnameera Abdul Samad, 26, and her boyfriend Jaay Chan, 25, up to speed in dishing out 20 types of fried rice at their hawker stall, helping them overcome their lack of culinary experience and ensure consistency in each plate. 

At their stall at Woodleigh Village Hawker Centre, opened in September 2024, they made the decision to harness automation primarily to solve the problem of labour shortage.

Ms Siti says: “Being a new stall, we do not have the budget to hire staff. And even if we did, it is difficult to find an experienced chef to work in a hawker centre.”

The couple-turned-business partners were coursemates at Republic Polytechnic.

Ms Siti graduated with a diploma in marine science and aquaculture in 2019. She worked as a lab technician for two years before quitting in late 2022 to pursue a part-time degree in psychology and criminology at Kaplan Singapore. 

Mr Chan, who also has a marine science and aquaculture diploma, worked as a sales executive in the shipping industry until late 2023. He is now studying for a part-time degree in business at the Singapore Institute of Management.

It was in mid-2023 that the couple decided to pursue their dream of starting a business together.

To gain insight into the F&B business, Mr Chan apprenticed for six months at Hong Kong Chef’s Kitchen, a stall at Ci Yuan Hawker Centre, working there daily from 10am to 5pm for free.

His friend’s uncle, who was head chef there, showed him the ropes, such as how to infuse fried rice with wok hei and how to prepare har cheong gai.

Mr Chan also found a mentor in a chef from Hong Kong who is in the business of automating kitchens. The chef suggested Mr Chan try out a machine for frying rice. 

Sold on the idea, Mr Chan and Ms Siti bought two machines for $6,000, which were customised and shipped from Guangzhou, China.

The couple pooled together $32,000 of their savings to set up their stall. 

They decided to specialise in the “staple” of fried rice, but with 20 options such as Curry Chicken Fried Rice ($5.80) and Sambal Beef Fried Rice ($7.50). Prices start at $3.20 for Egg Fried Rice and go up to $8.50 for Hae Bee Hiam Salmon Fried Rice.

The challenge was adapting the recipes that Mr Chan picked up at the zi char stall to be Muslim-friendly.

For example, he wanted to offer Har-Cheong Chicken Wings ($3.50 for four pieces), but could not use Chinese wine and fermented tofu for the marinade. He substituted these with halal-certified prawn paste.

Using the machine, Ms Siti, who has no prior cooking experience, is able to produce fried rice which tastes the same as Mr Chan’s.

She recalls: “I was intimidated by the machine at first. It is one thing to cook for myself and another to cook for paying customers. It was nerve-racking on opening day. But now, I feel in control.” 

The machine also allows them to fry their housemade hae bee hiam in just 15 minutes, compared with the hour it took them manually over a gas stove. 

Still, the couple labour from 8am to 11pm six days a week to make their sambal and curry from scratch. The marinade for their salted chicken alone takes four hours to prepare.

Initially, they grappled with the physical exhaustion of running the stall while juggling part-time studies.

Ms Siti recounts: “Our backs and legs ached and we had heat rash for the first few days when we wore long-sleeved shirts to try to protect our arms in the kitchen.”

The stall operates from Wednesdays to Mondays, 9.30am to 9.30pm, and is closed on Tuesdays. But Mr Chan returns to the stall on Tuesdays to prepare ingredients for the next day.

The stall broke even in January. The couple hope to obtain halal certification and are planning to launch a second outlet later this year. Their long-term goal is to have a chain of outlets.

Ms Siti says: “It is satisfying when customers come back and tell me they enjoy our fried rice and turn into our regulars.”

Slipped disc did not hold him back from starting a Hokkien mee stall

Mr Teo Jun Jie was a cook for a Hokkien mee stall in Bukit Batok, but had to quit after injuring his back hauling around 15kg buckets of prawns. The excruciating pain often caused him to break out in cold sweat.

But after hobbling around for six months, the 27-year-old recovered from his slipped disc injury and jumped at the opportunity to start his own stall with his best friend, Mr Soh Ren Jie, 28. 

The duo found an investor to put in the $30,000 they needed to get Ah Jie Hokkien Mee up and running in a coffee shop in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8 in August 2024. The stall is named after the two partners, who both have the word “jie” in their names.

Prices start at $6 for a small plate of Hokkien mee. There are options to add pork belly ($2), sotong ($2) and prawn ($2).

The pair decided on Hokkien mee as Mr Teo had two years’ experience frying it before he threw in the towel in December 2023 due to his back injury.

An alumni of Chua Chu Kang Secondary School, Mr Teo went on to enrol at the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM), but did not complete his business diploma as he “had no passion for studying”.

His father, who ran a logistics business before retiring in 2018, and his housewife mother were deeply disappointed with his decision. He has a younger brother, aged 23, who is studying business analytics at the National University of Singapore.

After leaving SIM, he worked in F&B as it was easy to get a job in the sector without tertiary qualifications.

His first full-time job was at a now-defunct Japanese restaurant at UE Square, where he met Mr Soh. They were both servers there and became steadfast friends, keeping in touch after they went on to do national service.

Afterwards, Mr Teo worked as an auxiliary police officer at Certis Cisco until 2021, when he quit to learn how to fry Hokkien mee at the Bukit Batok stall.

Since the age of 19, he has enjoyed wielding the wok and whipping up classics such as chilli crab and pork trotter beehoon for family dinners.

He says, chuckling: “I wasn’t afraid of the heat because as a former firefighter in NS, I am used to hot conditions.”

His mother was mortified by his decision to leave his stable job to be a cook, but his father encouraged him to do his best. 

On his first day, he had to shell 20kg of prawns, a task which took five hours and left him with smarting hands pricked by prawn shells.

Though he took the pain in his stride, one morning, his thumb got infected from being pricked by a prawn head. The thumb turned purple and swelled to almost double its normal size.

Anxious, Mr Teo rushed to the emergency department at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital. He recalls: “I was frightened that I might lose my thumb, but I didn’t dare tell any of my family members.”

When he returned to the stall after a day’s medical leave, he was laughed at by his co-workers.

Soon, he became blase about kitchen mishaps, sticking a plaster over minor wounds and carrying on without complaint. He says: “In this line, you are not going to get sympathy for cuts and burns, unless it is a major injury.”

Two weeks into working at the Hokkien mee stall, he took over the wok when the head cook quit. The complaints came fast and furious – too bland, too hard and too burnt. 

He continued plugging away at the stove, gaining confidence five months later when customers started telling him his Hokkien mee had wok hei. 

But 1½ years later, he threw in the towel when he found himself barely able to stand after his slipped disc.

By May 2024, he was itching to work again when Mr Soh suggested they partner up to start their own stall. Mr Soh had worked as a cook at two Japanese restaurants after serving NS. In 2023, he started an ice cream shop in Kembangan with two partners, which shuttered in early 2024 due to poor business.

After tasting Hokkien mee from 10 popular stalls, Mr Soh and Mr Teo decided on a wet style of Hokkien mee, which is different from the dry style Mr Teo dished out at his previous workplace.

As Mr Teo did not have experience preparing the prawn broth that would hold the dish together, the pair spent two months researching and formulating their own recipe. Mr Teo says: “The broth is the soul of the dish and we needed to get that right first.”

On opening day, they arrived at 4am to cook the broth. Running on no sleep and racked with nerves, both forgot to season the broth with salt, resulting in bland-tasting noodles.

It took another two months for them to refine their broth, which uses fresh pork bones, along with Thai farmed prawns for flavour. For optimal quality, they use fresh pork belly, lard, squid and prawns.

In the beginning, they worked from 8am to 10.30pm daily. In September, they hired a friend as a cook. This cut their working hours to 12 hours a day, and they could finally take turns to get a day off each week.

Business was so brisk, they broke even by their fourth month. They hope to open another outlet later in 2025, but are concerned with maintaining quality.

Mr Teo says: “When people see that we are young, they assume our parents gave us money to start our stall. But we did not want to burden our parents. I want my parents to know I can take care of myself.

“I feel gratified when my parents bring their friends here to eat our Hokkien mee. Although my parents don’t tell me directly, I know they feel proud of me when they tell their friends that I am one of the co-owners.”

This article was originally published in The Straits Times.