When former fund manager Yuan Oeij decided to turn his love of food and cooking into a restaurant business, he got a ‘free MBA’ in the unforgiving F&B industry. Today, his Privé Group owns a spread of smart casual restaurants, cafés, bars and nightspots, with more in the pipeline.

From his office at UOB Asset Management, Yuan Oeij used to gaze down on the waterfront scene in the heart of Singapore’s CBD — the Singapore River winding its way past the jumble of old-style shophouses at Boat Quay, the skyscrapers of the financial district rising behind them and, on the opposite side, the colonial-era buildings at Empress Place. “It is one of the most amazing views in Singapore,” Oeij reckons.

Today, he is directly connected to that vista at ground level through Empress, a light-filled glasshouse of a restaurant that opened in December. Housed in the Asian Civilisations Museum at Empress Place, the contemporary Chinese restaurant is one of nine restaurants, cafés, bars and nightspots under the growing umbrella of The Privé Group, of which Oeij is chairman.

A chartered accountant by training, Oeij traded a career in financial services at the age of 37 for an expedition into the restaurant world. A decade on, the man who, for a short time, was a private chef for hire, has made a mark on the local F&B scene with his Privé brand of smart casual eateries, known for their Wagyu beef burgers and steaks grilled in a highend Josper oven.

“It has always been a dream of mine to own a Chinese restaurant. So, I have managed to tick that box,” he tells Options. However, Empress is no plain-vanilla Chinese restaurant. From décor to menu, it seeks to juxtapose modern with retro and East with West. Custom-made rattan- backed chairs mesh with sleek lighting fixtures, while the dishes range from classic Cantonese roast meats to cempedak crème brûlée.

Oeij worked with Hong Kong chef Ricky Leung as well as The Privé Group’s executive chef Robin Ho to come up with new takes on the pastry side, combining Western and Chinese techniques and infusing Asian ingredients. One such outcome is its sticky date and longan pudding, which comes with gula melaka butterscotch, walnuts and goji berry and vanilla ice cream.

Empress’ elegant fare is quite a way from the bistro offerings that Oeij started out with when he opened his first restaurant in 2006. Called Brown Sugar, the River Valley eatery served mostly crowd pleasers such as fish and chips and lobster bisque. It also offered more gourmet fare such as Wagyu beef burgers, which at the time were not as common as they are now. The 70-seater bistro lasted two years until the government took back the building it was housed in. By then, Oeij had just about recouped his investment.

Jack of all trades
On a personal level, Brown Sugar turned out to be a hands-on crash course in the F&B business, an unforgiving industry that saw more than 500 restaurants shuttering in Singapore last year. “I got a free MBA out of it,” quips Oeij, who had to quickly grapple with the realities of setting up a commercial kitchen from scratch.

“I was a jack of all trades — the first to open and the last to leave, accountant, handyman, chef and waiter,” he recalls. He also remembers that it was difficult to hire people in the beginning. Even after advertising, the restaurant barely got any applicants. “Then, you sign on people and they don’t show up for work! Staffing is really difficult,” he says, echoing a grouse commonly heard across the F&B industry.

Along the way, however, he became better at handling stress as well as the crises that frequently crop up in the restaurant business such as a chef’s not turning up just as a busy shift is starting. His culinary chops, mostly self-honed, also helped him stay the course. A foodie from young, he discovered cooking while studying at the London School of Economics in England. Missing food from home such as chicken rice and hor fun, he tried to replicate those dishes.

After eight years in London, he moved to Hong Kong for work. That was when he began to entertain serious thoughts about opening a restaurant or going to culinary school. He contemplated setting up a chicken rice stall, as chicken rice was his favourite dish — Oeij gets his fix at Hainanese Delicacy at Far East Plaza or Seng Heng Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice at Bukit Timah Food Centre, both of which do stand-out versions of the dish, according to him.

However, he was hesitant. Was he too old, he wondered? Would the business succeed? Ultimately, he realised he was not cut out to be a chef — to be outstanding, one must be obsessed with the craft and be able to tolerate the long hours and pressure-cooker environment in the kitchen. “I wanted a balanced life,” he says.

In 2005, four years after he returned to Singapore from Hong Kong, he decided to pursue his restaurant dreams. While scouting around for a location, he began offering his services as a private chef. “I thought it would be good way to market myself,” says Oeij. One customer was former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, for whom he made gazpacho, beef rib eye with saffron potatoes, and tarte Tatin with pears, a dessert that has become a signature dish of his.

After Brown Sugar, Oeij began looking around for a new site. His friend, hotelier and restaurateur Loh Lik Peng, who had started well-received Hotel 1929, told him about a space on Keppel Island, where a new marina had been built. “I looked at it and wasn’t too sure about it. At the time, the location was considered off the beaten track. People weren’t into destination dining,” he says. He reckoned the restaurant would do well at weekends, but was unsure about how it would fare on weekdays. It was also a much bigger space than what he was looking for.

Still, he went ahead, opening in late 2007 a café, bar and restaurant named Privé in a nod to Keppel Island, which is Singapore’s only privately owned island. The novel location, waterfront views and the eateries’ polished take on hearty fare such as steak and fries struck a chord with diners. Today, Privé Grill, Privé Waterfront Bar and Privé Café at Keppel Bay are double their original size and can cater for about 400 persons in total.

Heartened by the reception, Oeij went on to try his hand at more casual F&B concepts — The University Club at Kent Ridge; Roadhouse, which serves American diner- type fare; and The Green Door, a garden bar. Roadhouse and The Green Door are in the Dempsey enclave of Bukit Timah. Oeij also brought in Jean-Luc Vu Han, who had worked at London’s The Savoy and Quaglino’s, to be his right-hand man in 2009. Vu Han, currently executive director of The Privé Group, oversees the company’s operations and strategy and also mentors the group’s 250-odd employees.

A couple of years later, Oeij hired Robin Ho as the group’s executive chef. Ho trained at local hospitality school Shatec and cut his teeth at renowned restaurants such as Le Gavroche in London and Les Amis in Singapore. As the company has grown in size and stature, staffing is no longer as much of a headache. “We don’t have difficulty finding people now,” Oeij says. Indeed, a couple of chefs from Brown Sugar are still with the group, as are five or six from the original team that opened the Privé outlets at Keppel Bay.

Ruthless nightlife business
Oeij notes, however, that there is still a shortage of good people in the restaurant business, given Singapore’s limited pool. Much has been made of the intense competition in the city state’s F&B industry, which had a total of 6,859 F&B establishments as at 2014, ranging from cafés and restaurants to coffee shops, fast food outlets, bars and food caterers. However, Oeij contends that competition in F&B is more for the hiring of staff. “If you can’t keep them happy, they leave faster than customers,” he says.

While the formula at Privé has worked, Oeij quickly discovered that other concepts didn’t work as well. In 2011, The Privé Group waded into the nightlife business, riding on the expertise of its previous CEO. Cocktail lounge Mink and nightclub Royal Room opened at the Pan Pacific Hotel. “I thought the business was easy and lucrative, but it is ultra-challenging and ruthless. And, the cost of operating is very high.”

Moreover, because the nightlife industry evolves very quickly, there is a need for nightspots to frequently refresh their offerings. In 2014, The Privé Group did just that, revamping its lounge and club into Match & Bang Bang with its partner, nightlife and lifestyle company Massive Collective.

Oeij says as long as the nightspots continue to do well, the group will retain them. The company also made a stab at the unorthodox when it set up Wolf in October 2013. Located off Club Street, the restaurant had a nose-to-tail menu that served up dishes such as offal and pig’s ear salad. The concept failed to take off and the eatery has since closed.

High spenders limited
The group’s focus now is growing the Privé brand, says Oeij, noting that what seems to work is food that is unpretentious and a dining environment that veers towards smart casual. In late 2014, the group opened a Privé outlet at CHIJMES, the former convent-turned-entertainment complex. To cater to the drinking crowd there, Privé CHIJMES has a more extensive bar menu.

Next up was Privé at the Asian Civilisations Museum, an all-day dining restaurant that made its debut last October. Most recently, in late January, a fourth outlet under the Privé banner opened at Clarke Quay, complete with a live band to draw the night crowd. Oeij is also exploring exporting the Privé brand overseas, possibly to cities such as Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur. “People have approached us,” he says. However, he is still in two minds about venturing into new territory and intends to tread carefully. “The key point is finding the right partner.”

Oeij would also like to find something that works for the mass market. The integrated resorts and the burst of celebrity chef restaurants in Singapore have been a catalyst for the local F&B scene and have resulted in diners’ willingness to pay more for special meals. Yet, it has also made Singapore a very expensive place to dine, Oeij says. “In Singapore, the bigger spending crowd is very limited,” he adds.

More restaurateurs, including Michelin- starred chefs, are also going the casual route. The growth prospects look brighter and margins are higher at this end of the market, Oeij believes. Sitting in his new restaurant Empress, there can hardly be a more appropriate place from which to draw up a formula to this market than the scenic spot that first inspired his restaurant dreams.

Sunita Sue Leng was formerly an associate editor at The Edge Singapore and now lives to eat.

This article appeared in the Options of Issue 720 (March 21) of The Edge Singapore.