Some chefs build their careers on mastery, while Mr Raj Kumar built his on curiosity. The head chef of Singapore’s Firangi Superstar restaurant didn’t train in Indian kitchens, yet now leads one of the city’s most distinctive takes on the cuisine. Modern Indian restaurants in Singapore are a dime a dozen, but few stand the test of time – and Firangi Superstar is one of them.
Mr Raj never planned to become a chef. After national service, he trained as an electrical engineer and worked briefly in the field before realising that financial stability alone wasn’t enough. He quit, guided by instinct.
Food, the cornerstone in a Tamil household, became the obvious direction. “We (Mr Raj’s family) weren’t well-to-do,” he said. “We didn’t travel, we didn’t go anywhere, but we always travelled through our food. We indulged on Sundays, that was luxury for me.”
His first professional kitchen was CUT by Wolfgang Puck at Marina Bay Sands, where he climbed through the ranks over six years. There, he learned the art of menu curation and discovered the joy of creating something that would outlast the day’s service. He recalled the thrill of his first menu addition, and the validation of seeing diners enjoy something he had shaped through trial and error. It was, he said, the first time he “really felt proud of a dish that went onto the menu of a one-Michelin-star restaurant.”
From there, Mr Raj moved to Andaz Singapore, where his responsibilities grew to managing multiple restaurants and overseeing large-scale hotel operations. The work was less glamorous and more bureaucratic, but it taught him how to balance creativity with consistency, and how to respect the system without losing his instincts.
The call from Firangi Superstar came after leaving Andaz, when he was taking a much-needed break. Laughing, he shared that he almost didn’t show up for a chat with the owners. “I thought I’d say no because I’d never cooked Indian food before,” he noted. But a visit to the restaurant changed his mind. “They told me – whatever you have is good enough. Bring that to this kitchen.” That vote of confidence, he said, “was all I needed.”
Much of his menu is autobiographical. “When I eat my dosa, I eat it with my podi – gunpowder. That’s a must for me. And that gunpowder is in my beef tartare and beetroot tartare recipe. These are things from my childhood that I sprinkle through the menu.”
At Firangi Superstar, the menu is a playground of cross-cultural creativity, where Indian and global flavours meet. The Banoffee Fritters, with their churros-style crunch, spring roll exterior, banana mousse, and spiced chocolate, are an example of that. Another standout is the Rasmalai Tres Leches, which reimagines the classic Indian sweet by layering rose-and-saffron-soaked cake with pistachios and a scoop of saffron ice cream – a meeting of Mexican and Indian dessert traditions.
Bengal Bake Off, which Mr Raj is most proud of, transforms the traditional Bengali seabass into a salt-dough bake finished with a sharp kasundi cream sauce.
Running a modern kitchen in Singapore, Mr Raj is both mentor and translator. “I look for people who love food,” he said. “Not someone who’s just mechanical. I like people who have opinions.” Leadership, for him, is about creating structure without suffocating individuality. “You come in, give me your best, and I’ll give you a safe space where you can voice your opinion.”
Outside of work, Mr Raj’s world narrows to family. Ironically, he doesn’t cook at home – “my wife does a lot of the cooking; she makes great sambals” – but food still anchors his life. His measure of success is simple – waking up content. “If you wake up and you’re happy, you’re successful,” he said. In the kitchen, he shared that success is when the next generation grows, “when someone who works for me becomes better than me.”
Food, to him, remains the most direct way to connect with people. It breaks down pretence, invites conversation. “Food breaks the ice, breaks barriers,” he said. “Sometimes it even creates conflict – which is also beautiful.”
At Firangi Superstar, Mr Raj’s approach is deliberate. Every dish is designed to honour tradition while exploring new possibilities, inviting diners to engage with Indian flavours in ways they might not expect.
His focus now extends beyond the kitchen – he sees the next step as building a broader appreciation among Indian diners for modern Indian cuisine, encouraging them to embrace innovation without losing connection to the food they grew up with.
“Convincing diners to approach modern Indian food with an open mind can be tricky. I just need to get them through the door,” he said.
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