Top chefs street

SLEEPY Tras Street is waking up.

Once home to a string of bridal shops, blink-and-you'll-miss-it corporate offices and KTV bars that keep all their unmentionable activities indoors, the shophouse-lined Chinatown lane has been stirring with new activity in recent months. Shortly after former St Regis Hotel head chef Frederic Colin broke out to set up Brasserie Gavroche and Cafe & Bar Gavroche on the street 18 months ago, a string of former fine-dining and hotel chefs have gradually streamed in to set up shop, too.

Among them are Stephan Zoisl, formerly of modern European fine-dining restaurant Novus, who now runs private cooking school, My Private Pantry; Stephane Istel, formerly head chef at DB Bistro Moderne in the Marina Bay Sands who set up Bar-Roque Grill in the Amara Hotel in July; and Sushi Mitsuya's Ryusuke Harada, who used to head Sushi Sora in the five-star Mandarin Oriental Tokyo. "When I first opened here, everyone asked me why I picked this street that has no other restaurants around, but I fell in love with the street and I trusted my feelings," says Colin. Six months later, more chefs and restaurateurs came looking at units on the street, he adds, "and I knew that at one point, this street would take off."