SINGAPORE — When Ms Grace Tan wants to host a dinner party, she has the luxury of holding it at a space dedicated to the pursuit of culinary excellence; the space also happens to be located at her workplace.

The cooking cum entertaining studio is the centrepiece of Tools of The Trade (ToTT), a 36,000-sq-ft integrated lifestyle complex in Bukit Timah that features cooking classes, a gourmet store, a bistro and a retail outlet for high-end cookware.

The concept is a radical extension of the core business of Sia Huat Holdings, a 53-year-old distributor of kitchen equipment business that runs ToTT. Sia Huat was founded by Ms Tan’s grandfather and is currently managed by her father, Mr CB Tan.

“It is an integrated concept that is meant to inspire people to cook and entertain,” said Ms Tan, 34, who runs ToTT. Her younger sister and brother are also involved in the family business.

Indeed, the space has inspired her husband, who prepares delicacies like tuna tartare at soirees hosted by the couple. But more than just a place to impress dinner guests, ToTT has become Ms Tan’s opportunity to put her stamp on her family’s business.

She was working in the United States marketing MBA programmes for the University of San Francisco when her father approached her to join the family business for the second time — she had done an earlier stint from 2002-05. Ms Tan decided to take up the offer in 2009 when her American husband, an IT executive, secured a job in Singapore.

While never directly pressured to join the family company, Ms Tan recalled that her father constantly talked about work during meal times, where he would often turn over plates at restaurants to see where they were made.

During her first time working at Sia Huat a decade ago, she discovered that working for her father came with its own complications.

“I put pressure on myself not to run to him every time there was a problem. I was a little too successful,” she recalled with a chuckle. “There was one project where I needed his guidance but didn’t ask for it and because of that I created a bottleneck.”

Things were much smoother when she returned in 2009, when her first task was to rebrand the company.

While Sia Huat was widely established as a supplier of products to professional chefs and restaurants here, it was little known outside of the industry. She was put in charge of marketing for ToTT, which launched in October 2010. In February this year, she was elevated to store manager overseeing the entire operation.

The idea for ToTT first came to Ms Tan’s father around seven years ago while visiting his daughters who were studying overseas. During trips to the US and Australia, he was exposed to specialised culinary lifestyle shops, but it was several years before he felt Singapore was ready for such a concept.

The elder Tan proudly describes ToTT as a “kitchen wonderland built to inspire people from all levels of culinary expertise”.

The sprawling space caters to all types of customers — from casual home cooks to professional restaurateurs — hawking products as diverse as molecular gastronomy kits to copper cookware.

Cooking classes run the gamut from Indonesian cuisine to macaroon baking and sees an eclectic mix of participants that include housewives and working professionals. The studios are also used for corporate functions and private parties.

“ToTT is very much consumer focussed, although we still cater to trade customers. We sell 80 per cent of what Sia Huat sells, but some chefs prefer coming here because it’s a much nicer space to shop at compared to the cramped Sia Huat outlet in Chinatown,” said Ms Tan.

More than two years after its launch, the challenge now for Ms Tan is to boost the brand’s prominence in the mainstream consciousness.

With Singapore’s dining scene in the midst of a renaissance marked by an unending stream of new restaurants opening, it could be the perfect time for ToTT to make its distinct mark on the culinary landscape.