Celebrity chefs ‘disappear’ from Singapore hotels after high-profile debuts

Mondrian Singapore Duxton opened Bottega di Carna under the auspices of Netflix personality and master Tuscan butcher Dario Cecchini in 2023. The hotel confirmed that this partnership ended at the end of 2025.

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It retains its Italian butchery concept, but is now helmed by the hotel’s executive chef. Cecchini continues at Carna by Dario Cecchini in the Mondrian Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Artyzen’s flagship restaurant, Quenino by Victor Liong, has shortened its name to Quenino, as Liong – chef-owner of the two-hatted Lee Ho Fook restaurant in Melbourne – takes a back seat to its Singaporean head chef Sujatha Asokan.

The restaurant is now a platform for Asokan’s South-east Asian cuisine, while Liong plays a role as “co-conspirator”. The Chinese-Australian chef signed on for a three year contract in 2022 before the hotel opened, and renewed it for another two years, which takes him to July 2027.

A hotel spokesman said, “We updated the name as part of the restaurant’s natural evolution, with no change to our contractual arrangements.”

Among the restaurants still operating with celebrity chefs are Grand Hyatt’s Le Pristine with chef Sergio Herman, and French pastry chef Cedric Grolet at COMO Orchard.

Grolet drew hours-long queues when it first opened in September 2023, but reservations are now easily available. Previously drawing the ire of diners for making it compulsory to order pricey set menus when making online reservations, the cafe now allows bookings with a la carte options.

The challenging dining scene has also witnessed two big-name hotel exits – that of Alain Ducasse and Anne-Sophie Pic from Raffles Hotel Singapore. Osteria BBR by Alain Ducasse closed in 2024, followed by La Dame de Pic in the same year.

La Dame de Pic’s space will be filled by a new celebrity chef-driven restaurant, 1887 by Andre, on Mar 31 – a venture with Taiwanese chef Andre Chiang.

Celebrity chefs have been a fixture in Singapore’s food and beverage industry, and have had varying outcomes. Marina Bay Sands has had some of the longest-running restaurants with chefs such as Tetsuya Wakuda, Daniel Boulud, Wolfgang Puck and Gordon Ramsay.

But big names are not a guarantee of success, said Dr Samer Elhajjar, senior lecturer in the department of marketing of the NUS Business School.

“For years, celebrity-chef tie-ups have been a reliable launch tactic because they compress what usually takes years into a few weeks: instant awareness, borrowed credibility and an easy story for media and diners,” said Dr Samer. 

While they succeed in driving early demand, “they do not automatically create repeat demand, and Singapore is ultimately a repeat market”, he added.

“MBS can sustain celebrity concepts longer because it continuously replenishes demand through footfall, entertainment and a built-in ‘special occasion’ context. Many other hotels do not have that structural advantage.”

He also noted a tendency for hotels “to treat celebrity chefs as a shortcut, almost like renting brand equity, without fully matching the chef to the market”. 

Loh Lik Peng, founder of Unlisted Collection, concurred. “The cachet (for celebrity names) is just not there anymore. Singaporeans, by and large, are jaded about the whole ‘celebrity chef’ thing because those who really care about such things are well travelled and sophisticated enough to know that most of these chefs save their best efforts for the home game and the Singapore outpost is just that – a remote outpost.

“They might visit once a year, or they might not bother, but certainly, the operation here is secondary at best.” 

Dr Samer said that ultimately, “the real question is not whether a launch creates buzz, but whether the restaurant still matters two or three years later”.