Daniel Tan

He had just completed his MBA while working with Pan Pacific Hotels Group and decided to quit his marketing job to take on this motorcycle adventure.

After he returned, Tan decided to quit the hotel business and today, he runs Food Playground, which promises “hands-on cooking fun”.

“The more you study, the more you analyse, the more you rationalize. I wanted to do something different. The trip cleared my mind. If I hadn’t done the trip, I wouldn’t have taken this step,” said Tan.

Tan opened Food Playground last September. During his motorcycle trip, he had attended a couple of cooking classes. “They were all run by chefs, the atmosphere was tense, and sometimes it kills the joy of learning. Amateurs cannot chop garlic as quickly and we pay not to get scolded, right?

“Singapore also doesn’t have a cooking culture – it’s so cheap to eat outside. And now we get young couples coming to learn to cook with us.”

Food Playground, housed in a shophouse in Craig Road, offers cooking classes taught not by professional chefs but stay-home mums and retirees with a passion for cooking and preserving Singapore and Asian food culture.

Its three-hour Cultural Cooking Class begins with a half-hour visit to a local wet market, followed by 90 minutes of cooking instructions on two popular local dishes, and an hour of dining and interaction. It is priced at S$99 per person.

Half of his business comes from tourists, currently mainly from Europe and Australia. The rest are locals and corporates who use Food Playground for team building events. The premises can take up to 30 people at one time.

Rated #1 of 279 tourist attractions in Singapore on TripAdvisor, Food Playground has seen good traffic come through the review site. “That’s the magic of reviews,” he said. “We don’t advertise, we don’t have the budget, but we do a lot online, especially social media through our Facebook page.”

When he first came up with the idea, he applied for a grant from SPRING Singapore, the statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry. “But they said our concept was not exactly high-tech, which is the flavor of the day – mobile apps, social media, e-commerce. The day we presented, we were the only brick and mortar company.

“They also felt we should hire big name professional chefs but we wanted to bring back mothers and retirees to the workforce. This was a setback but it forced us to be creative and so we went out to get corporate sponsorships. Philips for example sponsors our cooking appliances and Neo our induction pots and pans. 

“When you’re spending your own money, every cent counts.”

It was hard to convince investors initially. “They said, do we need another cooking school, you’re not a chef, why do you want to do this?”

But he managed to bring in two investors. His hotel marketing background has come in handy – he drives direct business through the website, engages on social media and has partnerships with tour operators and tour guides.

“It’s basically channel management except this is a lot more fun.”