Ex-Baker At New York’s Per Se Opening Bakery In Singapore, Will Serve The "Gucci Of Bread”

In an unassuming space along a row of ageing shophouses on Havelock Road, something exciting is brewing. A three-year-old sourdough starter is fed with flour and water daily, and fragrant, crusty loaves of bread are baked, tasted and gifted to friends, family, and anyone lucky enough to know their bakers… at least for now. These are the beginnings of Starter Lab Bakery, perhaps the most exciting boulangerie (slated to soft launch in August) since we discovered the pleasures of Bakery Brera’s cruffins and Firebake’s dense European-style sourdough loaves.

This is the second outpost of the popular hole-in-the-wall bakery of the same name in Bali, and Starter Lab’s kitchen is helmed by a baker who trained at places like chef Thomas Keller 3-Michelin-star restaurant Per Se in New York, James Beard-nominated bakery Della Fattoria and Tartine Bakery & Café (lauded for its sourdough bread — its owners Chad Robertson and Elisabeth Prueitt won a James Beard award for best pastry chefs in America in 2008) in California’s Bay Area. Starter Lab is famous for its American-style sourdough breads, which is traditionally tastier than other sourdoughs because of its species of… well, bacteria. It’s also slightly less dense than a traditional French sourdough, and moister. The Singapore space will boast a kiosk where customers can buy coffee and bread to take away, along with a café area that will seat up to 35 people around a communal table and bars. When 8 DAYS visited in early July, the dining area was still under construction, though the spacious kitchen at the back was up and running.

For gastro-hipsters who flit between Bali and Singapore like it’s a trip to the neighbourhood mall, Starter Lab is a familiar name. The bakery (pictured above) supplies popular Bali restaurants like Betel Nut, Mason, Shady Shack and Locavore with its sourdough loaves. Once word got out about its stellar breads, restaurateurs, chefs and bread lovers from Singapore began making the schlep to Bali to buy up to 10kg of bread, which they would squirrel into their check-in luggage to take home.

Photo: @starterlab.bali, Facebook

The people behind Starter Lab are the scruffy-cool, heavily tattooed Emerson Manibo, 46, and the elegant Min Siah, 39. Emerson, a Filipino who grew up in New York City and moved to Indonesia in his 20s, got into bread “pretty late in the game”, he says. “It started as a hobby. I got my first bread cookbook — My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method by Jim Lahey — in 2010 when I was 38. Once I started making bread, I was hooked.”

The calling was clarion enough for him to leave his job as a middle school teacher in Jakarta and enroll in a bread course at the French Culinary Institute (now rebranded as the International Culinary Center) in New York. When he was done, he sent his resume to the top 10 bakeries in America. Not one of them responded. Undeterred, Emerson hit the best restaurants in America next. Out of the 15 that he reached out to, one Per Se in New York replied.

“They called me in for a one-day stage (a culinary internship) so I took the chance and bought a one-way ticket to New York in 2012,” he says. “I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to get this job, so I’m not coming back’.” Emerson stayed at Per Se for six and a half months. As its overnight baker, his workday began at midnight, when he would prepare bread for the restaurant and the three Bouchon bakeries (Thomas Keller’s casual eateries) across the city, and end at 2pm. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The work was intense, everything had to be perfect. I didn’t even have time for a toilet break. But that’s where I learned discipline and high standards,” he says.

Photo: Per Se, Facebook

He moved on to the cult favourite pizzeria, Roberta’s Pizza in Brooklyn, where he learnt to bake dough in wood-fire ovens before deciding to head to the Bay Area in California, the home of American-style sourdough bread (during the California Gold Rush around 1849, sourdough became a staple for miners because of its durability and the easy availability of yeast). While enrolled in a pastry course at the French Culinary Institute in California, Emerson took a job as a baker at Della Fattoria in Petaluma, a vocational pit stop for many well-known bakers including Tartine’s chefs Chad Robertson and Richard Hart (both considered trailblazers in San Francisco’s baking scene). Within a year and a half, Emerson had worked his way up to head baker there. He later moved on to Tartine, where he worked for a year as a bread baker before relocating to Bali for love.​​​​​​​

Photo: Tartine Bakery

Emerson and Min met through mutual friends in Bali and maintained a long-distance relationship (she is born in Malaysia, grew up in Australia, and was based in Bali at the time) for several months before they realised she was pregnant with their now three-year-old son, Kali. “I’d always wanted to move back to Bali because I really missed the food,” Emerson explains. “And when we found out we were going to have a baby, that was it, that was my reason.”

The couple, who are now no longer romantically involved, decided to set up Starter Lab, a hole-in-the-wall bakery in Bali’s Canggu district in 2017. Buoyed by the interest among Singaporeans who came to Bali to buy their breads, they decided to set up shop here.

Emerson is mostly based in Singapore for the moment, as he sets up the kitchen here. Once the outfit is up and running, he will return to Bali where a 2,000-sq-ft Starter Lab production facility is in the works, leaving Indonesian head baker Shannen Alexandra to helm the Singapore bakery. FYI: Emerson is is actually just a consultant for the Singapore branch while Min is the main investor here — she also takes care of the rest of the biz (and they have two smaller silent investors).

When it opens in August, Singapore’s Starter Lab will feature about seven variations of sourdough loaves daily, along with a small selection of pastries, sandwiches and what Min calls “posh toast”. “Essentially simple tartines (open-faced French-style sandwiches), with just three to five ingredients — the idea is to highlight the bread. We want people to have variety when they come in and feel like they’re doing something good for their body and taste buds.” The café’s coffee programme is run by the people behind Glasshouse at Chijmes (while we feel the standard of Glasshouse's coffee has slipped recently, we're hoping the cuppas they serve at the soon-to-be-opened Starter Lab Sg will fare better).

Emerson and his team of four bakers are still experimenting with the flours available here, as well as the shapes and sizes of their loaves. At this stage, prices have not been set, but the loaves should sell for between $12 and $18 for a 1kg to 1.2kg loaf. Smaller loaves like the 400-gram baguette should cost about $8, while pastries like scones will go for about $5 each. “We’re definitely on the high end,” says Min. “Even in Bali, people complain that our prices are high, but they come and buy the bread anyway.”

“They call us the Gucci of bread,” adds Emerson with a laugh, “which I take as a compliment. But you know, it’s a handmade loaf, so a lot of time, good ingredients and work goes into it.”

These are the breads we sampled.

This long slab has the sharpest tang among the bakes here, and a delightfully nutty fragrance. The crust is almost cracker-like yet chewy, with a sturdy, supple crumb within that’s denser than your average French baguette. The miso is barely discernible, but it does give it a deeper savoury flavour. Great texture but slightly too sour for our tastes — though it’s very true to the style of sourdough loaves we’ve had in San Francisco.

The crisp crust, coated in a mix of black and white sesame seeds and sunflower seeds, gives way to a lovely, silky crumb with a light, sweet tang.

Beneath its blistered, rugged crust is a soft, lushly moist dough with a sharp tang. Made with 25 percent whole wheat, it is great as a flavourful sandwich bread.

Despite its seemingly burnt crust, we love this airy loaf that squishes in the mouth with every bite. It has the barest tang and a fine, crackly crust brushed with a good hit of salt (we could barely taste the lemon, though). Good for sourdough virgins since this one’s gentler on the tartness.

Forget the fluffy, layered British scone — these American-style confections are crumbly and hearty, with a hint of sweetness from chopped dates. When the bakery opens, the team will use “whatever is on hand”, like cranberries or citrus fruit. Delicious when eaten warm with a pat of melting butter.

Made with whole wheat, molasses, flaxseeds soaked in milk, bananas and both white and brown sugar, this loaf is rustic, with more texture than your average banana bread, though less sweet. Not bad, though we find it a bit heavy ‘cos of the whole wheat and flaxseeds and the molasses kinda overwhelmed the banana flavour.

A fine example of the bakery’s “posh toast”. The sturdy slices of fresh seeded wheat loaf hold up well to the luscious cheese and honey — together, all the flavours are delectably balanced and taste heartily wholesome. When the bakery opens, the kitchen will make components like the mascarpone from scratch.

We love the runny egg salad spiked with chopped spring onions and lemon so that its flavours are bright and lush. This sumptuous mix gets an added dimension of flavour from sheets of umami nori and the baguette’s savouriness and tang.

If you’re a fan of San Francisco-style sourdough bread, you’re in for a treat. Unlike European loaves, these breads are lighter, boast lusher textures, and have more nuanced flavour beyond just tanginess. Emerson and his team have also mastered the balance of getting just enough moisture into their dough (San Fran sourdoughs, particularly those popularised by Tartine, are distinctively “wet”) without yielding loaves that are too damp. We dare say this is currently our favourite sourdough in Singapore. Let's hope the standard of the breads at Starter Lab Singapore remains consistent once Emerson hands over the reins to his Indonesian head baker and returns to Bali.

Starter Lab opens in August at 721 Havelock Rd. Tel: 9839-0408. Email @thestarterlab.com for more info.

Photos: Alvin Teo