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Photo: Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants
Filipino chef Johanne Siy of Mediterranean-inspired restaurant Lolla has been crowned Asia’s Best Female Chef 2023, an annual award by Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, which recognizes female chefs who helm restaurants in the region.
The win is especially sweet for Singapore, which is hosting the 10th edition of the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, as it marks the first time that a Singapore-based chef has bagged this award.
Siy will be one of the many culinary luminaries honoured at the in-person ceremony on 28 March. Asia’s gastronomic industry is expected to gather in the Republic for the live ceremony, which has been on hiatus for the past three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On clinching the award, Siy, who has been based in Singapore for nine years, says: “It is great validation for my team and I, for all the hard work invested in bettering our craft every single day. I want to shine a spotlight on the work of remarkable women in our industry, in the hopes that one day we as a community can thrive and reach new heights by leveraging the symbiosis that a truly egalitarian workforce brings.”
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Siy’s culinary journey was not a conventional one — she worked as a regional brand manager for FMCG giant Procter & Gamble for six years before her passion for cooking beckoned. The 41-year-old Singapore permanent resident made a mid-career switch from the corporate world by going back to school at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in New York.
After graduating from CIA, she built up her culinary career in acclaimed restaurants such as Cafe Boulud by French chef Daniel Boloud, and the three-Michelin-starred Le Bernardin by Eric Ripert, both in New York City. She has also cut her teeth at modern Nordic restaurant Noma in Copenhagen, Relae, fine-dining restaurant in Copenhagen and the now-defunct Faviken in Sweden.
In 2014, she relocated to Singapore to work as a sous chef at the acclaimed Restaurant Andre. She stayed there for four years until chef-owner Andre Chiang decided to shut down his two-Michelin-starred restaurant in 2018.
In 2020, Siy joined Lolla, which is an independently-run homegrown restaurant, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last year — a respectable feat in the competitive Singapore dining industry.
Adding an international touch to Lolla
Over the past two years, Siy, who is the head chef at Lolla, has brought an international and produce-driven perspective to the small-plates restaurant by featuring produce sourced from around the world. She also revamped the menu during the pandemic, which brought the dining industry to a standstill and the restaurant had to switch to serving Western dishes and Basque burnt cheesecakes during bouts of dine-in bans. Last year, she introduced an ala carte menu and a multi-course tasting menu, which showcased her culinary flair at the 22-seat restaurant in Ann Siang Road.
Some of her highlight dishes include a smoked eel consomme gel housed in avocado served with coconut milk-spiked ponzu, grilled jumbo-sized carabinero prawns from pain with prawn head sauce and slow-cooked wagyu beef tongue with a berry glaze and green peppercorn.
Lolla was ranked No. 75 on last year’s Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants long list.
Siy, who was born in Dagupan, The Philippines, did not forget about her roots, introducing dishes such as crab relleno with aligue sauce (a Filipino fermented paste) and kaffir lime.
She is one of Asia’s Best Female Chef recipients who had unconventional routes to the Kitchen. Vicky Lau of Tate Dining Room in Hong Kong (2015) was a graphic designer, Taiwan’s Lanshu Chen (2015) studied English Literature while fellow Filipina Margarita Forés (2016) was trained as an accountant.
Additional reporting by Ishuarwin Kaur.
