Food Opera revamp at Ion Orchard preserves local food culture

His son, Jonathan, who became group chief executive in October 2024, grew up following his parents to work. Weekends were filled with store visits. During his school holidays, he worked in the group for basic pay.

In 2018, on a holiday back home while studying at Cass Business School in London, he spent time in the finance department and did a three-week stint as an operations intern at Food Republic in Suntec City. There, his work included quality control, clearing trays and dishwashing.

He graduated with a bachelor of science in management in 2019. He capped it with a master of science in real estate in 2020, which he completed online after returning to Singapore in March that year during the Covid-19 pandemic, before borders closed.

He could see his parents grappling with the toll of the pandemic. Foodcourts with hundreds of seats were reduced to takeaway operations and, later, to limited seating with safe distancing measures.

Food Opera was one of the group’s badly affected outlets. Business fell to as low as 20% of 2019’s pre-pandemic numbers.

He joined BreadTalk Group full-time in September 2020 as an operations executive and went through six months of intensive operations training.

At BreadTalk in Tampines Mall, he manned the cashier, handled product displays and learnt to shape bread.

He also rotated through the central kitchen and Toast Box. His shifts ran from 7am to 4pm or from 1pm until closing at 10pm, and he worked overtime.

His father says: “I wanted him to taste the hardship to understand the heartbeat of the business, so that he will cherish the employees who put in the hard work.”

Jonathan adds: “His advice to me was, ‘Roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty.’”

A year later, he became assistant general manager and was subsequently promoted to general manager of BreadTalk and Toast Box, then managing director in 2022.

As chairman of the group, Quek had mentored and trained other chief executives and was heartened by his children joining him. His elder daughter, Joselle Quek, 33, is senior director of research and development for the bakery division, while his younger son, Matthew Quek, 29, is general manager of Taiwanese restaurant chain Din Tai Fung. BreadTalk Group operates the Din Tai Fung franchise in Singapore.

Leadership and strategy

When deciding who should lead the company, he looks for three qualities.

The first is character. A leader, he says, must be trustworthy and hardworking, with integrity, and cannot be arrogant or selfish.

The second is passion for the food and beverage business. “It is a difficult industry to be in, so you need passion as fuel,” he says.

The third is taste. “The person must have an eye for beauty, appreciate culture and have a flair for aesthetics.”

Jonathan, chosen for the position, has introduced technology and data as part of the company’s way forward. 

As part of its digital transformation, the group now uses Geographic Information System tools for site selection. Enterprise resource planning systems, finance automation and artificial intelligence are used to simplify routine work.

The elder Quek supports the change. In the past, he says, business development, including assessing potential sites for new foodcourts or other outlets, was based largely on experience, gut feel, footfall and observations of consumer behaviour. Now, decision-making is further backed by data.

Jonathan says his thinking about growth has also changed since he joined the company.

“When I first joined the business in 2020, my instinct was to do more: more promotions, more campaigns, more product launches. We were chasing growth, but we might have ended up spreading ourselves too thin in the process.”

Over time, he realised that strategy is not just about deciding what to do, but also having the discipline to decide what not to do.

He adds: “Instead of asking, ‘How do we sell more?’, we began asking, ‘How do we create an experience customers will remember and want to return to?’”

At Food Opera, that means going beyond simply filling up the tenant list. Much thought goes into the tenant mix. Some are places the Quek family has patronised over the years.

Jonathan remembers going to Ming Chung Restaurant in Maude Road with his family when he was young.

He suggested getting Ming Chung and Berempah Bros to take up stalls at Food Opera. It was his team that approached and persuaded them to come on board. It is the first time the two brands, which have hawker outlets, entered a foodcourt.

He says: “We have to become curators of great food, great operators and even things people haven’t discovered yet.”

For him, keeping local food culture alive also means ensuring people still want to eat local fare.

“The best way to preserve our food culture is to keep people eating it. Heritage has to stay alive, not sit behind glass,” he says.

His father now concentrates mainly on board-level matters, but Jonathan does not hesitate to approach him for advice when needed. They dine together as a family at a foodcourt about once a month and continue to observe operations when they visit outlets, even entering the dishwashing area to check on hygiene levels.

Asked how he feels about handing over day-to-day leadership of the business he built, Quek says: “I feel more relaxed. I have more free time.”

But Jonathan feels the responsibility as a torchbearer. A Chinese saying that wealth does not last beyond three generations is always at the back of his mind.

“I better not mess this up,” he says good-humouredly.

He also does not believe preserving what his father built means leaving it unchanged. In fact, his father is behind the group’s philosophy of seeking the new, embracing change and daring to differentiate.

“The most respectful thing we can do with a legacy is not to freeze it in time, but to keep having the courage to reinvent it,” he says.

5 dishes to try at Food Opera

Where: Food Opera at Ion Orchard, B4-04 Ion Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn
Open: 10am to 10pm 

Hakka Bond Express

At Hakka Bond’s first express outlet in a foodcourt, order its five-piece Handmade Yong Tau Foo ($10.90), with fried tau pok, fried mushroom, fried beancurd, steamed cabbage and fried tau kwa. Each piece is stuffed with a mixture of minced meat and fish instead of the fish-paste-only filling commonly found elsewhere.

Parkson Bak Kut Teh

The home-grown brand’s Original White Pepper Bak Kut Teh (Dry, $10.80) is inspired by the dry-style herbal bak kut teh commonly found in Malaysia. The stall uses Australian pork and Sarawak white peppercorns, which are slowly roasted over low heat to bring out their aroma.

The dish includes pork ribs, intestines, pork leg and sliced pork coated in a peppery sauce.

Ming Chung White Lor Mee

While the 93-year-old brand is known for its white lor mee, its Heng Hua Fried Bee Hoon ($8.80 for small, $12.80 for medium) is worth ordering too.

Extra-thin Heng Hwa rice vermicelli imported from China is wok-fried until fragrant and savoury, then topped with fresh prawns, lala and braised pork. The combination gives the dish both seafood sweetness and meaty richness.

Wah Eng Beef Noodle

The Mixed Beef Noodle Soup ($13.90) comes loaded with beef slices, beef brisket, honeycomb tripe and handmade beef balls. The broth is slow-simmered with beef knuckle bones and a secret blend of eight herbs and spices for a full-bodied, aromatic flavour. No additional monosodium glutamate is used, allowing the flavours of the beef and herbs to shine.

Berempah Bros

The signature Ayam Berempah ($10) features a boneless chicken thigh brined for juiciness, then marinated overnight in a blend of 16 ingredients, including fennel, cumin and coriander, before being fried. 

The dish comes with berempah crumbs made with toasted coconut and aromatic rempah, including ingredients such as lemongrass, shallots, garlic, turmeric and chilli. Coconut rice, fried egg and achar complete the plate.