The Fat Kid Who Loved McDonald’s Too Much

At 14, Barry Quek was the chubby Singaporean boy who treated McDonald’s like a second home. He worked there for four years — long enough that, even today, a late-night Filet-O-Fish remains his ultimate guilty pleasure. Little did teenage Barry know that the same kid queuing for Happy Meals would one day run the only Michelin-starred restaurant in Hong Kong flying the Singapore flag.

When the Army Cookhouse Changed Everything

National Service in Singapore is where the light-bulb truly flickered. Watching “aunties and uncles” bang out 500 perfect portions under insane pressure, Barry was mesmerised. “It tasted amazing every single time,” he recalls. Two years of military discipline gave him something no culinary school could: the ability to thrive in chaos.

French Precision, Belgian Wildness, London Polish

His first real kitchen job at 21? Straight into the three-Michelin-star Joël Robuchon in Singapore — butter cut with a ruler, zero fidgeting allowed. After that came Belgium’s legendary In de Wulf, where he foraged in forests, butchered whole animals, and fermented everything in sight. A two-and-a-half-year stint at Portland (1 Michelin star, London) under mentor Merlin Labron-Johnson sharpened his modern European edge. By 2018 he felt bullet-proof… until Hong Kong broke him open.

The Crisis That Forced Him Home (Without Leaving Hong Kong)

Opening Beet in 2018, Barry cooked pure European food and quickly became a critics’ darling. Then protests and pandemic killed the restaurant overnight. Stuck in Hong Kong with no diners, he did the most Singaporean thing possible: set up a hawker stall with his Vietnamese neighbour Co Thanh, selling laksa and nasi lemak in a food hall. Suddenly, the flavours of his childhood were selling faster than any tasting menu ever had.

Whey: The Restaurant That Refused to Be “Fusion”

In May 2021, backed by ZS Hospitality’s Elizabeth Chu, Whey opened with a safe 70% European, 30% Singaporean menu. It tasted confused. “The Asian flavours always bullied the European ones,” Barry laughs. Instead of toning Asia down (the usual fine-dining trick), he did the opposite: cranked the rempah, sambal, buah keluak, and white pepper to eleven, then used every European technique he owned to make them elegant.

The result? A 2022 Michelin star — the first and still only one for Singaporean cuisine in Hong Kong — retained every year since.

Signature Dishes That Make Singaporeans Cry (in a good way)

Lobster Nasi Ulam – the classic herb rice salad, now laced with ten different leaves and topped with plump lobster

Pompano with sweet-pea velouté and Rasam consommé poured tableside

Buah Keluak brioche so accurate that Peranakans message him in tears

D24 durian ice cream crowned with Kristal caviar — because why not?

Corn ice cream on a base of traditional kueh-inspired rice cake

Every plate feels like a love letter written to the hawker centres, wet markets, and his mother’s kitchen — just delivered on fancy porcelain.

The Future

Barry no longer apologises for flavour bombs. He imports torch ginger by the crate, has his mum and sister on speed-dial for emergency buah keluak runs when suppliers fail, and spends hours hand-stirring rempah the way Peranakan grandmothers do. His next dream? To keep pushing until the world accepts that South-east Asian food can be as luxurious — and as Michelin-worthy — as anything from Bordeaux or Tokyo.

From Happy Meals to a Michelin star, Barry Quek proves that the boldest fine dining often starts with the most nostalgic bite of home. Book Whey now — before the waiting list gets any longer.