New Pulpit for a Food Evangelist

Singapore is a country of countless hawker stalls and beloved mom-and-pop restaurants that serve excellent renditions of local dishes. So when its notoriously discerning eaters pack into a chic hotel lobby to seek out traditional fare, take note.

On a recent weeknight at Folklore, at the Destination Singapore Beach Road hotel, table after table was filled with locals tucking into dishes like pork belly braised in tamarind gravy and eggplant sambal. The cuisine here is Singapore’s so-called heritage food — and the chef behind it, Damian D’Silva, is something of an evangelist on the matter.

“Our heritage food is dead or dying — a lot of the dishes that I used to eat as a kid, today, they’re no longer available,” said D’Silva, who learned to cook as a child by watching his grandparents whip up Peranakan (descendants of Chinese immigrants to the Malay Peninsula) and Eurasian classics at the stove. “It’s very important to keep them alive.”

D’Silva, who ran the kitchens at various restaurants in Singapore before opening Folklore in July, has amassed a loyal following. In 2008, when he took a break from restaurants to offer Peranakan dishes and Western fare like his signature anchovy pasta in a tiny coffee shop stall, the well-heeled followed, pulling up in pricey cars for takeout or sitting on a stool to sweat over a Wagyu steak.

Standouts at Folklore include singgang, a Eurasian wolf herring dish, and the must-try fried rice, which stars the deliciously rich chocolate-like insides of buah keluak, a Southeast Asian nutlike fruit. There are also standards done well, including chap chye, a Peranakan dish of vegetables and glass noodles cooked in pork and prawn stock.

Perhaps more interesting, however, is D’Silva’s foray into the more obscure. His plan is to change the menu every few months to add dishes that he says are increasingly rare — for example, kai fan, rice topped with Chinese sausage, roast pork and shredded chicken, with chicken stock poured over it right before serving.

“It’s a very simple dish, but when you put hot soup on it, all those flavors seep into the rice,” he said, calling it “soul food that the laborers would eat” in the 1960s at hawker stalls in the country’s bustling quays.

And around Singapore’s major holidays — Chinese New Year, Hindu Diwali (or Deepavali, as Singaporeans call it), Muslim Hari Raya — D’Silva is adding dishes from those culinary traditions. In the weeks around Christmas, for example, the chef served debal, a fiery curry made with ham, roast pork and spare ribs. The dish, which Singapore’s Eurasian families traditionally have made on Boxing Day, is their way to use up Christmas leftovers.

The desserts are memorable, including D’Silva’s Peranakan cakes, which would rival those of many old Singaporean bakeries. Some Western twists pop up: Palm sugar syrup, used in many local desserts, came drizzled over panna cotta, and the kueh bengkah (a grated tapioca cake) appeared with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, which alarmed my parents, who both remarked, “You don’t eat it with ice cream!” But perhaps D’Silva is starting some traditions of his own. After a few bites, my parents pronounced the ice cream a delightful addition.