An international career specialising in Japanese cuisine, extensive stakeholder management experience, and the ability to create a cohesive and effective operational flow between front of house and kitchen are just some traits that define Chef Rose Ang.
A career spanning 29 years with extensive international experience — Rose Ang is not your typical female chef. Already an accomplished mentor and leader in the (largely male-driven) culinary field, Ang also has experience in leadership and management roles in the hospitality industry, making her a rarity when it comes to being an all-rounder chef.
Her latest position is Founder-Chef of the upcoming Domo, which occupies the former digs of Mikuni on Level 3 of Fairmont Singapore. Here, you can expect a new robatayaki concept restaurant that blends Japanese and international influences.
Sprawling over 7,500 sq ft, the 220-seater restaurant has a casual space and a more fine-dining area with five private rooms (the largest of which can seat 20 pax) each offering a full menu. Along with robatayaki, Ang’s multi-concept vision has Domo offering innovative sushi, tempura, fish dishes, grilled dishes, as well as omakase. “With my extensive experience in Japanese cuisine and having worked extensively with Chef Nobu Matsuhisa in several of his restaurants around the world, my vision for Domo is to create a relaxed, high-quality dining experience, without the confines of prolonged fine dining.”
Inspired by her baptism by fire at the acclaimed ROKA group, opening her own restaurant to showcase her innovative and bold style was a no-brainer for the seasoned 50-year-old. Despite Singapore brimming with many Japanese eateries, Ang believes that robatayaki is a niche just starting to come into its own here, a space that she is looking forward to filling with her forward vision and thinking.
With its varied menu offerings, the restaurant will cater to different tiers — from families with young children to professionals looking for business set lunches and omakase dinner guests. “While there’s no scarcity of Japanese restaurants in Singapore, enjoying fine food in a casual setting with a fun, relaxed vibe is not very easy to find,” she says. “As for my cooking style, I would describe it as modern fusion, influenced by Australian, European, and Japanese cuisines. It doesn’t get more international and fun than that.” Ang also worked in several countries around the world, before moving back to Singapore in 2021 during the pandemic.
Interestingly, Ang was the only female and first Chinese chef to be hired by Chef Nobu for his restaurant in Greece. “It’s never easy being a female in a male-dominated industry and I had to
prove my skills and dedication, working three times harder than everyone else to gain their respect. But I never gave up and that’s how I got into leadership and mentoring for my team.”
“Teaching the Nobu team in Greece the right way to cook rice for sushi and the challenges of opening Nobu in Macau while getting the team to adapt to Japanese techniques in a non-modern environment have been challenging parts of my journey,” she shares. Ang also adds that it was trying times like this in her career that taught her the importance of organisational skills and the ability to manage people in different environments, moulding her into the leader she is today.
Having been headhunted most of her career for her management skills and culinary expertise, Ang was most recently approached by the owners of Asia Grand (local stalwarts in Cantonese fine dining) to partner with them to launch Domo.
Simply translated, Domo means ‘very or very much’ in Japanese, expressing earnest gratitude and appreciation. Shares Ang, “For me, Domo is a polite and welcoming term, meaning ‘please come to our place’, chosen to reflect the team’s warm, inviting spirit.
However, Ang admits that her plans for Domo are nothing if not ambitious and come with their own fair share of challenges. One of her biggest challenges of starting a restaurant from scratch was finding skilled cooks, given Singapore’s ongoing manpower shortage and quota requirements. Plus, the cost of sourcing for premium ingredients at reasonable prices so that the menu and long-term restaurant sustainability can be successfully managed.
“I will have 50 full-timers and 30 part-timers, including kitchen and front-of-house staff. Luckily, I was able to retain the former sushi chef from Mikuni,” Ang reveals. “I will also have a head chef running the day-to-day operations, while I oversee the menus, recipes, and everything else. As for costs, I am fortunate for the collaboration with Asia Grand and their strong buying power that I can leverage off at Domo to manage costs.”
With premium ingredients from around the world, especially seafood from Japan and meat from Australia, diners can look forward to Ang’s innovative dishes: The Domo House Roll with robata prawn, guacamole, asparagus, and yuzu shiso sauce, Salmon Tataki with Dijon Mustard Miso Sauce drizzled with balsamic glaze, and Domo Matcha-misu, for a Japanese twist on tiramisu with matcha yuzu syrup.
Interestingly, specialising in Japanese cuisine was not part of her career plan when Ang first started out as a chef. “In late 2006, I was headhunted by the robatayaki ROKA Group to run their 11,000 sq ft, 305-seater Roka Restaurant at the Venetian Hotel Macau. Not having had any prior Japanese experience, I trained extensively at ROKA in London to learn everything about their concept. That’s the first time I learned about Japanese food. I had to learn everything at different stations, and then bring all that experience and expertise to Macau. With the Macau renovation project costing a cool $8 million to launch, you can imagine the pressure and the challenge that lay ahead of me.”
Having gained a considerable amount of success in Macau, Ang was handpicked by Nobu in October 2008 to run his operations in Badrutt’s Palace Hotel in Switzerland, as well as NOBU Matsuhisa Modern Japanese Restaurant Belvedere Club, Greece.
Fast forward to the present day and Ang is excited to unveil a platform where she can showcase everything from her travels and experience from around the world, putting her spin on each
of her innovative creations. “Domo is really going to showcase my life’s journey so far,” she says. She credits Chef Nobu for sharing with her that he wanted more and more people to learn
about Japanese cuisine, and to be more knowledgeable about it.
Ang is also very passionate about creating a fun working environment for her team, because “how you treat your team is how they will treat your customers.” It’s something that Ang learnt from her time working in Australia, where work wasn’t just a place to earn a living. It was where you worked and had fun at the same time, because that’s where you spent most of your day, everyday. Ang believes that apart from her unique menu offering, the environment and a healthy work-life balance is going to be a much-needed rarity.
“Not a lot of people want to join this industry because of its long hours and endless sacrifices. I’ve had to sacrifice a lot throughout my career, especially personal family ties, to get to where I am today. I sincerely hope that I can make a difference and stop the next generation from having to do the same, especially since we can now use flexi-hours and AI to our advantage.”
Her advice to the younger generation: “Give yourself a chance to prove to yourself that you can do it. Follow the right person; not everyone will want to teach you because they are too worried about self-preservation. Find someone who is truly passionate about passing the ropes onto the next generation. Keep going and don’t ever give up. There will always be a solution, you just have to stay positive. Planning and being able to pivot are the most important things for success.”