Mod-Sin Rising

Twenty years after chef-restaurateur Willin Low pioneered modern Singaporean cuisine, today's young chefs are pushing boundaries with indigenous ingredients and reimagined classics to claim their rightful place on the global stage

- By Dawson Tan

Sixty years after independence, Singapore's culinary identity is experiencing its most thrilling evolution yet. While a new chapter of mod-Sin, or modern Singaporean, cuisine is being written, it was first created in 2005 by chef-restaurateur Willin Low, who is widely known as the godfather of mod-Sin cuisine today. “Before 2005 and before Wild Rocket (Low’s first mod-Sin restaurant), you would rarely see or hear of any Singaporean ingredients and dishes mentioned in a restaurant,” recalls Low on this 20th anniversary.

“Now you hear laksa, chicken rice, chilli crab being used in fancy restaurants effortlessly.”

Undoubtedly, Low’s work has shaped the narrative of mod-Sin gastronomy since its genesis, and tangible impacts have been observed on both local and global perceptions of Singaporean food.

“It showed us that it was okay to celebrate traditional food in new ways”, he notes, adding that foods such as salted egg fish skin and even bak chor mee ramen with onsen egg are viewed as normalised creations today.

So, where do we go from here? Low foresees that “mod-Sin will continue to be the same as it has always been”, celebrating the spirit of a Singaporean dish by reinterpreting it with different—and sometimes unexpected—ingredients and culinary techniques. One of his star creations is a Hainanese chicken rice-inspired beef carpaccio with a relish of spring onion, ginger and sesame oil. It had neither chicken nor rice, but Low remembers that every Singaporean who ate it brought chicken rice to mind.