With summer just around the corner in Chennai, late February is not the best month to launch an open air restaurant. But, like most other businesses in the world, Mr Ong saw its well-planned calendar careened off-track by two years of intermittent lockdowns - and like most other businesses in the world, Mr Ong had to improvise.
These improvisations came in big ways, as well as small. The small touches, at this newly opened Singaporean restaurant at Park Hyatt Chennai, include a slew of East-inspired cocktails like cherry blossom martini and watermelon soju that are well-iced, albeit more watered-down than diners would like.
A much larger innovation, by in-house executive chef Balaji Natarajan and team, was their online training. Balaji and team spent hours everyday before a projector screen, with a Singaporean food consultant on live video call to demonstrate techniques and watch them practise. “She could see how I was chopping the ingredients, and check things like texture. But for smell and taste, we had to depend on our descriptions. She was supposed to fly down and spend weeks with us. But once airports shut down, we had to think of some other way,” says the chef during a five-minute respite from Mr Ong’s open kitchen, flanked by the little pool-facing bar and wood-and-wicker seats that comprise the restaurant.
