Southern comfort

For Miami-based restaurateur John Kunkel, opening a restaurant somewhere in South-east Asia was always something he wanted to do. After all, he had spent some time living in places like Hong Kong, Thailand and Taiwan in his 20s and during that time "fell in love with the region".

Now at age 46, he is finally venturing to this part of the world, with an extension of his popular comfort food restaurant, Yardbird Southern Table & Bar, which he first opened in Miami Beach, Florida. A sister outlet also exists at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.

"It's one of the most popular restaurants at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, so when the concept proved successful we made plans to come to its sister property in Singapore. We just needed to find the right space so I started making trips here a year and a half ago to look at spaces and try to understand how we fit into this market," he explains.