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1 Michelin-starred hawker-chef Chan to open new restaurant with partner

SINGAPORE – Hersing Culinary today announced its partnership with chef Chan Hon Meng – the owner of one Michelin-starred Hong Kong soya sauce chicken rice and noodle stall Liao Fan – to open its first quick service restaurant in Singapore, called Hawker Chan.


Hersing Culinary announced its partnership with the owner of one Michelin-starred Hong Kong soya sauce chicken rice and noodle stall Liao Fan, chef Chan Hon Meng, to open its first quick service restaurant in Singapore. Photo: Hon Jing Yi

Hersing Culinary announced its partnership with the owner of one Michelin-starred Hong Kong soya sauce chicken rice and noodle stall Liao Fan, chef Chan Hon Meng, to open its first quick service restaurant in Singapore. Photo: Hon Jing Yi

SINGAPORE – Hersing Culinary today (Oct 28) announced its partnership with chef Chan Hon Meng – the owner of one Michelin-starred Hong Kong soya sauce chicken rice and noodle stall Liao Fan – to open its first quick service restaurant in Singapore. 


The air-conditioned restaurant, which will be named Hawker Chan, will serve the same soya sauce chicken rice and noodle dishes available at Liao Fan.


Hawker Chan is scheduled to open mid-November this year with space for 80 diners, and will be located at 78 Smith Street, Chinatown. 

Speaking at a media conference, Chan said he will be training family members to helm his hawker stall at Chinatown Food Complex, and will split his time between the hawker stall and the restaurant to make sure that the quality of the food is consistent. He added that the food served at both restaurants will be fresh and prepared onsite.

Chan declined to reveal more details about pricing, but assured that the dishes will be priced about the same as dishes served at food courts, and will remain affordable.

“We want the customer to come first, not our profit. This is why I wanted to work with Hersing, because we want the food to be fresh, and I don’t want the prices to be above others. We have to find a price that will allow everyone to believe is fair,” Chan said in Mandarin.

In previous reports, Chan had told the media that he has received offers from companies to buy his recipe. He had said then that the first critieria was an offer of at least S$2 million as a "guaranteed cooperation fee" for the recipe. 

Addressing this, the chef said he and Hersing decided instead to enter into a partnership. Hersing Culinary, which also owns the franchising rights to Hong Kong’s Michelin-starred dim sum eatery Tim Ho Wan in the Asia Pacific region, has invested S$1 million in the first Hawker Chan restaurant, and the company and Chan have a 50 per cent stake each in the eatery.

“When I started, I never thought I would come this far, and maybe even become international one day. I just kept working, and I was satisfied when my customers came back and said they liked my food,” Chan said. “When I got my Michelin star, I thought since so many people liked my food, and more people asked me to open more stalls…I started talking to more people in the industry, and thinking about expanding.”

Referring to his company’s success with expanding Michelin-starred Hong Kong dim sum eatery Tim Ho Wan to 38 locations over three years, Hersing chairman Harry Chua said the company was prepared to grow Hawker Chan into an international brand. 

“This being the first concept, we will have to test it for three to six months to tweak any problems that we may have with customer service, the ordering system or how long (customers) take to get their food. We cannot have them pay money and wait 10 minutes. We will be ironing out all the systems, and after that we will look at how we are going to expand, like we did at Tim Ho Wan,” Chua said.

“I am really happy that my humble stall can be turned into a restaurant, and that we may even be able to expand internationally in the future. This is a great honour,” Chan said. “I hope other hawkers won’t think that they won’t ever achieve their aspirations because they just have small businesses now. Work hard, and your dreams will come true.”

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