My role is more like an agent telling the stories of the communities behind the produce.
In a city where restaurants rise and fall with quiet regularity, a chef who once sold soap is preparing to open a 26-seat dining room built on the belief that food is inseparable from the hands that made it. Johanne Siy, Filipino-Chinese and Singaporean by choice, spent a year crossing continents — Brittany, Roanne, Arita, the Philippine coast — not to collect ingredients, but to collect stories. Aro, opening in September on Mohamed Sultan Road, carries a name that means both to till the earth and to love, and in that double meaning lives the restaurant's entire ambition: to close the distance between a Singapore diner and the world that feeds them.
- A chef who left a marketing career at 28 is now staking a low seven-figure personal investment on the idea that Singapore diners are hungry for honesty, not just excellence.
- The dining market she is entering is unforgiving — restaurants with Michelin stars have shuttered, and the space Aro will occupy belonged to one of them.
- Siy spent a full year in motion — descending into cheese-aging tunnels in France, sitting with ceramics makers in Japan, tracing sea salt on a Philippine island — to ensure every object and ingredient in the room has a provenance worth telling.
- Her 26-seat counter restaurant will serve seafood-forward tasting menus at $200–$300 per person, weaving Asian indigenous ingredients like fish sauce and seaweed alongside globally recognized luxury produce.
- She frames her role not as chef but as agent — a storyteller for producer communities whose work rarely reaches the table with its full meaning intact.
- When September arrives, the question she cannot yet answer is whether the intent she has poured into Aro will translate into the kind of value that keeps a small, personal restaurant alive.
Johanne Siy spent the past year traveling with purpose. She visited an oyster farm in Brittany, watched cheese age in an underground tunnel in Roanne, sat with ceramics makers in Arita, and traced the making of sea salt on a Philippine island. Each journey was preparation for Aro, a 26-seat restaurant opening in September on Mohamed Sultan Road, in the space once occupied by the one-Michelin-starred Esora. The name holds two meanings: in Latin, to till the soil; in the dialect of her hometown, love.
Siy did not begin as a chef. She arrived in Singapore from the Philippines in 2003, aged 22, to work in marketing and branding for Procter & Gamble. Cooking started as a weekend pleasure and slowly became the thing she lived for. In 2010, she left the corporate world for the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. What followed was a career shaped by some of the world's most demanding kitchens — Le Bernardin in New York, Restaurant Andre in Singapore, Noma and Faviken in Scandinavia — before she joined Lolla, where her dishes began to tell stories as much as they satisfied appetites.
Aro will serve tasting menus priced between $200 and $300 per person. The room will feel personal: wood, textiles, art from her own collection, objects gathered on her travels. She and her husband are funding the venture themselves, with support from a small circle of friends. She admits she is scared. She also says it is exciting.
The menus will be seafood-forward — she grew up in Pangasinan, five minutes from the beach — and will foreground what she calls remarkable but overlooked ingredients from the Asia-Pacific: salt, fish sauce, seaweed, placed alongside the ingredients the world already recognizes as luxury. She sees herself less as a traditional chef and more as an agent for the communities behind the produce, working to close the gap she believes exists in Singapore between diners and the origins of their food.
In a market where even celebrated restaurants have closed, she speaks about honesty as her foundation. Singapore diners travel, she says. They understand quality. Whether they will find sufficient value in what Aro is offering — and whether that will be enough — is a question September will begin to answer.
Johanne Siy spent the past year traveling to places most people only read about. She visited an oyster farm in Brittany, descended into an underground railway tunnel in Roanne to watch cheese age, sat with ceramics makers in Arita, and traced the production of sea salt on a Philippine island. Each journey had a purpose. Each sourcing trip was a thread in the tapestry of a restaurant she is about to open.
Aro opens in September on Mohamed Sultan Road, a 26-seat space that used to belong to Esora, the one-Michelin-starred restaurant that closed its doors. The name itself carries weight. In Latin, "aro" means to till the soil. In the dialect of Siy's hometown, it means love. She is 45 now, a Singaporean citizen, and she has decided to stake everything on this idea: a restaurant that tells the story of where food comes from, and why that story matters.
Siy did not always plan to be a chef. In 2003, she arrived in Singapore from the Philippines as a 22-year-old fresh out of university, hired by Procter & Gamble to work in marketing and branding. She was one of many young expatriates building a life in a new city. On weekends, she cooked for friends. Gradually, the weekend cooking became the thing she looked forward to. The day job became the thing she endured. In 2010, after six years with the company, she left for the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.
What followed was a education written in Michelin stars. After graduating in 2012, she worked at Le Bernardin in New York City for two years—a three-star restaurant where precision is not optional. She moved to Singapore and spent four years at Restaurant Andre, another two-star establishment. Then she went to Scandinavia: Noma in Copenhagen, Relae, Faviken in Sweden. In 2020, she joined Lolla, where she created dishes like Oyster, Oyster, Oyster!—grilled oysters draped with paper-thin slices of king oyster mushroom and topped with oyster leaves—and Mayura Wagyu Tri-Tip, where cacao nibs and charred Swiss chard told the story of what the cattle had eaten. She was not just cooking. She was narrating.
Aro will serve tasting menus priced between $200 and $300 per person. The space will feel like a home: wood, textiles, art from her own collection, objects from her travels. She and her husband, a 52-year-old tech consultant, are funding the low seven-figure setup cost, along with what she describes as support from "a few supportive friends." When asked if she is scared, she says yes. She also says it is exciting.
The menus will be seafood-forward—she grew up in Pangasinan, five minutes from the beach—and they will feature what she calls "remarkable yet unsung ingredients" from the Asia-Pacific region: salt, fish sauce, seaweed. These will sit alongside what the world has long considered luxury ingredients. She sees her role differently than a traditional chef. She is, she says, more like an agent telling the stories of the communities behind the produce. In Singapore, she believes, there is a gap between diners and the origins of their food. She wants to close it.
When asked how she thinks diners will respond in a market where restaurants are closing regularly, she speaks about value and honesty. Singapore diners are evolved, she says. They travel. They know what good food is. "What we do is fundamentally rooted in honesty, sincerity and a genuine desire to connect and nurture," she says. "I hope that intent comes through the experience and people see value in that." In September, she will find out if they do.
Notable Quotes
It's scary and exciting at the same time.— Johanne Siy, on opening Aro
What we do is fundamentally rooted in honesty, sincerity and a genuine desire to connect and nurture.— Johanne Siy, on her restaurant's philosophy
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
You spent a year traveling to source ingredients. That's not typical restaurant prep. What were you actually looking for?
I was looking for people. The oyster farmer in Brittany, the cheese maker in Roanne, the ceramics artist in Arita—each one has a philosophy, a way of working that matters. I wanted to understand it, to know them, so that when I use their work, I can tell that story to the diner.
But you could have sourced these things without traveling. Why go yourself?
Because there's a difference between buying something and understanding it. When you stand in the salt ponds in Bohol and watch how the salt is made by hand, you understand the labor. You understand the respect it deserves.
You left a stable corporate job to become a chef. Do you ever wonder if you made the right choice?
Every time I think about how much easier it would be to stay in marketing, I remember that weekend cooking. That feeling of people gathering around food you made, that connection—that's not something a salary can replace.
Aro is expensive. $200 to $300 per person. In a market where restaurants are closing, how do you justify that?
Value isn't just price. It's the story, the intention, the honesty behind every plate. If I'm asking someone to spend that much, I have to earn it by being completely genuine about what we're doing.
What happens if people don't come?
Then I'll have learned something important about Singapore, about what diners want right now. But I have to try. There's no other way forward.