Business Times - 21 Mar 2009
Feeling the pinch
Singapore's top restaurants have not been spared the current economic fallout, with diners changing their eating patterns or seeking better deals elsewhere. But there are some positive developments amidst the gloom. By Jaime Ee
AT the rate the phones are ringing in Forlino, you'd think that all is well in fine dining land in Singapore, where the well-heeled continue to wine and dine in this swish Italian eatery at One Fullerton as if the word 'recession' had never once escaped their lips.
'They're just calling to find out what promotions we're having,' says owner Beppe De Vito, drily. 'We get so many calls I might have to get someone to do nothing but answer the phone full-time!'
Welcome to the new reality of gourmet dining - where 'set lunch' is the new catch phrase and 1-for-1 is the new romantic dinner for two. Gone is the assumption that if you offer top quality produce, people will pay a premium for it. Truffles and caviar are almost a distant memory, at best making a guest appearance in the menu of a visiting three-star Michelin chef - at prices sensibly adjusted to reflect current sentiments, of course.
'People are very much more aware of how they are spending,' says Mr De Vito, who also owns Il Lido in Sentosa. 'They want to appear to be saving money.'
He adds: 'We get a lot of companies calling for quotations and then we never hear from them again. When we try to find out why, it turns out they have decided to go to 'cheaper-sounding' places (even though the prices quoted are similar). They don't want to be seen as entertaining at places like Forlino, which they perceive to be expensive. It's cool to be thrifty - it's the new trend,' he shrugs.
His top priority now is to bring bodies into his restaurants, which are earning half as much as they used to. That means outright 20 per cent discounts for people on his mailing list, 1-for-1 set menus with certain credit cards, and any other promotions he can think of.
Such deals have also brought out the ugly side of diners who know they are in a strong position to squeeze the best deal possible. 'Two out of three calls we get are about promotions. They want to combine them or pay for the 1-for-1 deals with a different credit card. But what can we do? We don't have a choice.'
Dining patterns have changed too, he adds. 'At lunch, only 20 per cent order from the a la carte menu. The rest go for set lunches. Dinner is pretty quiet - half of what we normally get.'
His assessment of current spending trends is borne out by the example of Christophe Oudin, managing director of Zwiesel Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. 'We are definitely looking at set lunches when entertaining, with very few dinners now,' he says. 'My dinner budget for four people used to be $600 but now it's $300. For lunch, the budget is around $120 to $180.'
This kind of budget allows him to entertain at top restaurants like 'Les Amis, Gunther's, Julien Bompard and Garibaldi, but only at lunch because it would be more difficult to accommodate our new expense budgets in the evenings'. For dinner, 'we go to more casual restaurants like Oso, Absinthe, Jing, New Majestic, Jim Thompson or PS Cafe'. And when it comes to his own personal expenditure, Mr Oudin replies, 'I entertain much more at home now.'
Indeed, the celebratory dinner of fine cuisine and wine at a fancy restaurant seems to be going out of fashion, as noticed by Au Jardin Les Amis.
'Mid-level guests who used to come with their girlfriends on special occasions have disappeared,' says restaurant manager Royston So. 'Referrals from hotels have dropped too. But we still have the high net worth guests who are willing to spend.'
Even with that welcome support, dinner business is down by 30 per cent, adds Mr So. But lunch business is up by 20 per cent, although the restaurant only opens for lunch on Fridays. Sunday brunches are full.
'We have two dinner set menus costing $200 for eight courses or $150 for four courses,' says Mr So. 'Before, all our guests would choose either of these menus. Now, only half pick the sets while the rest order from the a la carte menu. They'll choose two courses, but we've also had some diners who only order one course. Their spending power has been cut, but they still want the experience of dining at the restaurant.'
At sister restaurant Les Amis, the one-main-course diner exists too, but restaurant manager Timothy Goh sees a clearer trend of people ordering two courses and either sharing one dessert or skipping it. There's been an understandably drastic drop in 'bankers and brokers' and a 35 to 50 per cent decline in wine expenditure, but he is banking on its good value $60 set lunches - 'we offer pasta with black Perigord truffles as the main course which costs $65 on the a la carte menu' - and $150 set dinners to woo diners.
Minimum expenditure for booking the whole restaurant or private dining rooms has been cut, but the restaurant stops short of waiving corkage completely - 'we maintain a 1-for-1 or corkage fee policy'.
Interestingly, a different scene is played out in Hong Kong where Cepage, Les Amis' first overseas restaurant venture, opened in February. 'We've been full all this while,' says group operations director Randy See. 'It may be a honeymoon period but we're still benefiting from it.' He attributes it to the Hong Kong dining out culture - 'they don't cook or entertain at home, they're not used to it' - and residents' willingness to spend even if they are not going all out. 'It's a much more encouraging scene than Singapore.'
Dedicated gourmets
Back home, high-end eateries can only depend on a small group of dedicated gourmets who still have the spending power to shell out for good food, particularly the Michelin-star variety, which is why hotels like the Hilton Singapore, Raffles and Goodwood Park continue to host such chefs on an annual basis.
At the recent Raffles Food and Wine Experience, a dinner by three-starred Bruno Menard was sold out, and so was a Chateau Haut-Brion wine tasting. The other chef events saw decent turnouts but they were hardly full.
The same optimism is reported by the Hilton. 'Customers are still responding positively, although they are spending less on beverage and choosing the less expensive menus,' says Matthieu Riviere, director of food and beverage. Hilton plans to bring in six Michelin star chefs this year, same as last year.
The customer base that such events depend on includes top plastic surgeon Woffles Wu who still attends degustation dinners. 'I like what the Raffles and World Gourmet Summit are doing, although I just haven't had time to frequent their offerings lately. But I would go to the WGS this year if I hear more about it.'
Even then, Dr Wu is not the sort to entertain lavishly, 'and I still don't', he says. 'I have my favourites like Iggy's, Les Amis, Club Chinois, etc but I also entertain at inexpensive restaurants like Lau Hokkien or this Tiong Bahru seafood place behind a bus stop.'
Avid foodie Francis Wong, managing director of Capitol Optical, agrees. 'The recession may have had an impact on the frequency of my business meals - I now entertain about four times a week compared to almost eight before - but the amount I spend on each meal remains the same.'
Top-end customers like Mr Wong 'place more importance on the quality of the food or the service, they don't really care about discounts or perks', feels Andrew Tjioe of the Tung Lok group, which owns upscale eateries My Humble House and Club Chinois. 'But of course, if you give them something like a 1-for-1 promotion they will appreciate it.'
So much so that the two restaurants which are offering a 1-for-1 weekend buffet promotion are booked solid till June. It will certainly help fill the restaurants which have seen a drop in corporate entertainment.
'We need to offer discounts but we have to do it tastefully,' says Mr Tjioe. 'For example, we cut the price of our tasting menu at My Humble House to $80 from $120. You still get good quality, innovative cooking from Sam Leong, but without expensive ingredients like shark's fin or abalone.'
For sure, these deals are not going unnoticed.
'There is much more room for negotiation in restaurants these days,' says one local socialite. 'A lot of caterers and restaurants are offering buffets and free flow of wine and beer for a certain amount, which they never did before. And they are open to requests, no matter what.
'They are also working a lot harder to please you, which is one good thing that came out of this recession. For example, when I went to the Fullerton, I got there half an hour before the buffet's closing time, but they said 'it's okay, we will give you an hour'. They might not have done that on an average day before the recession, plus they served us alcohol, which they said they wouldn't do.'
One industry source believes that the high-end restaurants that will get through these trying times are those willing to bite the bullet and adjust prices to suit the market. Indeed, several top restaurants are still loathe to offer discounts or admit just how badly they are affected, preferring to stick to the oft-repeated refrain that they offer a premium product that customers are still prepared to pay for.
'They're deluding themselves,' says the source. 'The good times are not going to come back as quickly. There's no time to hold back and hope things get better. You have to cut prices and squeeze your suppliers to lower your costs as well.'
If anything, smaller fine dining restaurants tend to fare better since they are better able to control costs. At Gunther's, chef-owner Gunther Hubrechsen dismissed idle talk that he was facing closure because his business was dependent on high-spending financial brokers during the boom times. While that sector has dried up, he is still doing decent covers - 'more than half full on average, and we were full for dinner three nights this week' - and has not had to lower prices or cut staff. 'When we first opened, the restaurant was too small to cope with demand. Now things are slower, everything is under control. We're not doing great but we're not losing. And definitely not closing.'
The novelty factor is another element that is supporting chef Michael Han's funky new startup 53, a tiny seven-table experimental eatery. 'Lunch ($45) is full most days and dinner ($145 - down from the original $190) fluctuates - we had nine on Monday, 18 on Thursday, tonight (Saturday) we're full,' he says. 'The response has been encouraging given the climate and long opening delay.'
Bright spots
On the upside, though, March has been a fairly decent month for fine dining restaurants. 'Forlino has been full for lunch for the past two weeks and dinner is slightly more steady although it's still light years from what we used to do,' says Mr De Vito. 'We've seen a pick up in March compared to January although of course the mood isn't as positive as it used to be,' says Les Amis' Mr Goh.
In addition, the sombre economy isn't enough to put the Les Amis group off its expansion plans. It's going ahead to take over two boutique spaces in Shaw Centre to literally create a Les Amis food street on that stretch. Apart from Les Amis, La Strada and Aoki, the group expects to open a high-end Japanese yakiniku concept and a mid-range, semi-private kitchen style Asian-Western eatery helmed by a former Les Amis chef. The plan is to open in the middle of the year, says spokesman Raymond Lim, at a cost of not more than $750,000 for both outlets.
Even as the two new outlets - and a new mid-range concept to be introduced in the last quarter of the year by Mr De Vito - add to the already high competition levels, there is no doubt that the consumer is the one laughing all the way to the carpark.
'This is not Hong Kong, where people like to be seen in expensive places,' says Mr De Vito. 'In Singapore, everybody wants a good deal, and it would be stupid not to give it to them.'
Additional reporting by Amanda de Guzman
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