SINGAPORE – Never mind the prices – upward of $25 for an individual serving of cake and $11 for a croissant – the opening of Cedric Grolet Singapore, the first Asian outpost for the French pastry chef, dubbed the rock star of pastries, drew queues starting at 6am.
Queues – note the plural. There was one for takeaways, one for dine-in, one for people who had reserved cakes online.
This clamour for baked goods seems at odds with the Como Group. Its fashion, hospitality, wellness and lifestyle arms are synonymous with stealth luxe, which is, arguably, the most luxe kind of luxe. Queues? For croissants? Surely not.
And yet, those queues speak to the canny ability of the group’s owner, Mrs Christina Ong, to figure out what people want, how to get people talking and buying, and how to bring new life to Orchard Road.
For that, the low-key businesswoman, who never gives interviews, lands on the Power List 2023.
Como Orchard in Bideford Road, the 19-storey building next to Paragon, opened in September. Mrs Ong’s luxury fashion store Club21; Como Cuisine, an all-day-dining restaurant serving $24 Soto Ayam; and Cedric Grolet Singapore opened for business that month.
These spaces were designed by Italian architect and designer Paola Navone of Otto Studio in Milan. She has worked on other Como projects, including Culina at Como Dempsey, The Dempsey Cookhouse and Bar, and one-Michelin-starred restaurant Candlenut.
The opening of the 156-room Como Metropolitan Singapore followed in October. It is designed by Japanese interior design-consultant Koichiro Ikebuchi of Atelier Ikebuchi, who also designed several Como Hotels and Resorts properties, including Como Shambhala Estate in Bali and Como Maalifushi in the Maldives.
A Como spokesman says that by the end of January, Como Orchard will be fully open, with the launch of the group’s wellness urban flagship, Como Shambhala, and Cote Korean Steakhouse, Korean-American chef Simon Kim’s high-end restaurant.
Cote, which opened in New York City in 2017, earned a two-star review from The New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells, who writes that the restaurant’s dry-aged beef is the best of any Korean barbecue establishment in the city. It earned its first Michelin star within a year of opening.
Just how did Mrs Ong get Grolet and Kim to open here?
The Como spokesman says the Frenchman had visited Singapore several times over the last few years, to conduct pastry masterclasses.
The spokesman adds: “Expanding his presence to Asia was about finding chemistry with the right partner who shares his pursuit for excellence on many fronts.”
Grolet was introduced to Mrs Ong, and his first store in Asia – he has two in Paris and one in London – materialised.
French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who is behind the Como Group’s The Dempsey Cookhouse and Bar, made the introductions between chef Kim and Mrs Ong. They met Mrs Ong over dinner at Cote in New York City. Kim visited Singapore and, according to a Cote spokesman, “fell in love with Singapore and knew that was where he wanted to open his first international Cote Korean Steakhouse”.
There is no stopping Mrs Ong, it seems.
Italian chef Massimo Bottura of three-Michelin-starred Osteria Francescana in Modena, twice No. 1 in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, will open Torno Subito by Massimo Bottura in early 2024 at Como Dempsey.
In 2023, Hotel Properties Limited (HPL), owned by Mrs Ong’s husband, Mr Ong Beng Seng, was given the green light to redevelop Forum The Shopping Mall, Voco Orchard Singapore hotel and HPL House, all of which HPL owns.
What stars will Mrs Ong lasso? What will the constellation at that end of Orchard Road look like?
