Women chefs: Johanne Siy charts a new path

[SINGAPORE] Opening your own restaurant is a messy business for a chef. There are contractors to manage, hidden costs to pay, landlords to negotiate with – not to mention the existential question: If you build it, will anyone come?

As Johanne Siy edges closer to the September launch of Aro – a “labour of love” she has worked on for more than a year – she finds herself caught between passion for her craft and the practical money-making aspect of it. 

“Will we be able to create something that resonates with diners? What am I adding to the landscape? What am I saying that no one else is? These are constantly at the back of my mind,” says the former chef of Lolla and best female chef in the 2023 Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants guide.

They are just the opening jitters of a chef whose new venture has been hotly awaited since she left Lolla last July to finally realise a dream she has harboured since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Siy is clearly in her element as she takes you on a tour of Aro – still in mid-construction – talking about power loads and gas pipes while conversing with a contractor in Mandarin just like a local.

In fact, she is; the Filipino-Chinese and her husband became citizens last year, after living in Singapore for more than 20 years. It also explains why she’s laying permanent roots here with a restaurant that’s costing “a low seven figures”, funded by the couple and several friends.

The 26-seater, Keiji Ashizawa-designed restaurant takes over from the defunct Esora in Mohamed Sultan Road, previously part of Wee Teng Wen’s Lo & Behold group, which also owns the building.

Siy picked it for its central location and because rent is more affordable, relative to high-foot-traffic areas such as Amoy Street.

Esora’s counter-focused layout was exactly what she imagined for Aro. It also helped that Wee – who is not involved in Aro but is known for his support for local talent – is “a very understanding landlord”.  

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From chef to businesswoman

Siy concedes that the transition from chef to business owner left her overwhelmed, “like a piece of dough that’s been stretched till almost transparent”.

As someone used to overseeing every detail, it took a lot for her to step aside and let the experts tackle the technical tasks she wasn’t familiar with. “I kept wanting to do everything myself,” she laments.

She decided instead to focus on what she was best at – developing Aro’s concept and cuisine. And the result was not so much a menu but a crusade – to highlight unexplored or underrated South-east Asian ingredients. 

She spent much of the year after Lolla travelling in Europe and Asia, including the Philippines, where she visited artisanal salt makers whose products “deserve to be on the same gastronomic pedestal as all the other ingredients we consider premium”.

She describes her work as “creator’s cuisine”, which is “not defined by nationality; it’s a back-to-basics approach of letting ingredients define the possibilities”. 

She’s aware that fine dining is losing favour among price-conscious Singaporeans, but feels they value experience over cost.

“If you offer something that enriches them, be it an ingredient they’ve never had or a new way of looking at something, it becomes a valuable experience that overrides the price point,” she says.

But there’s no doubt that Aro is the culmination of a personal journey that began in 2003 when she first arrived in Singapore as an executive with Procter & Gamble, cooking on weekends for fellow young expatriates living alone like she was.

She turned professional in 2010, when she enrolled in New York’s Culinary Institute of America, doing stints in the kitchens of Daniel Boulud and Eric Ripert.

She spent four years with Andre Chiang in Singapore before heading to Scandinavia to stage at the likes of Noma and Faviken. It was there that she learnt to appreciate the hard work that went into farming, and the purity of the ingredients grown by hand.

She returned to Singapore with plans to open a bakery, even working for sourdough bakery Starter Lab for a while. But Covid hit and she eventually took on a part-time job at Lolla, which stretched into a five-year term.

But it was the best female chef award – coincidentally in the same year that Lim won for best pastry chef – that put her in the spotlight, earning her a large following that is no doubt waiting for Aro to open.

Role model for female chefs

Siy hopes to play a role in supporting female chefs in Singapore. While not deliberate, the team she has hired so far is an all-female one.

“Maybe I need to balance it out,” she laughs. “But I like working with women,” she adds. “Maybe it’s the similar way of thinking, and how we organise things.”

She believes that challenges faced by female chefs aren’t so much about lack of opportunities but societal expectations.

“When I ask female chef interviewees where they see themselves in five years’ time, they’re unsure. They’re at the age where they should step into leadership roles, but it’s also the time when they want to start a family. They have to decide, and usually they pick ‘family’, because that’s what’s expected of them.”

As an employer, she wants to create a conducive environment for women that’s sensitive to their needs, such as giving a valued teammate a less rigorous role if she plans to be a mother. 

Mostly, though, she feels that women chefs need a platform, and “eventually, I’d love to be able to help young talents by featuring them and put them in the spotlight a little more”.

But for now, her priority is Aro, which is built on three things. “Craftsmanship, ingredients and community – everything will reflect that,” she says.

Aro is at 15 Mohamed Sultan