At just 24 years old, sushi chef Aeron Choo is ready to take on the world
Fortune Centre’s a place where you will find more vegetarian eateries and geomancy centres than Japanese sushi joints, but sushi chef Aeron Choo has carved out a space to call her own at her little shop lot—one-third of one, to be exact.
Called Kappou Japanese Sushi Tapas Bar, this little shop space on the second floor is where Choo whips up omakase dinners (10 to 14 courses, from $128), mostly by herself and occasionally with help from an assistant. She washes, preps, cooks and serves—it’s all in a day’s work. “Sushi is my life,” Choo declares. Although she was recently hospitalised for a back injury, that has not stopped or indeed, slowed her down. “It’s just one of the small hurdles in life!”
Choo started her career in the kitchen at 14, working variously as a dishwasher, waitress and line cook at Japanese casual diners in Singapore such as the now-defunct Waraku Japanese Casual Dining and Yayoiken at Liang Court (now renamed Yayoi). When she was 18, she spent a few months working at eateries in New York before heading to Japan. In Tokyo, she earned a diploma from the Japan Sushi Instructors Association then cut her teeth at multiple sushi shops for about two years. By the time she returned from her stint, she was fluent in Japanese and ready to do time at top Japanese restaurants in Singapore such as Shinji by Kanesaka.
In 2015, Choo started her first venture Ayakichi Donburi, a coffeeshop stall in Yishun selling donburi and ramen. A little more than a year ago, she took the plunge with Kappou Japanese Sushi Tapas Bar.
This story is from the March/April 2018 edition of WINE&DINE.
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This story is from the March/April 2018 edition of WINE&DINE.
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