A chef is perhaps the last person you’d imagine would have an appreciation for the slow things in life. After all, managing a kitchen during a packed dinner service is nothing short of a day-long sprint from start to finish; one would think having to stay in this state of constant hurriedness is bound to leave one with a chronic case of impatience.
But Julien Royer begs to differ. The decorated chef-owner of three-Michelin-starred Odette tells Options that when he gets a day off from work, his first instinct is to take a step back from it all to enjoy the simple pleasures in life. From evening walks with his wife to spending an “unplugged” day indoors, he finds joy in savouring the quiet moments, away from all the fanfare and buzz that comes with being a celebrity chef.
It’s the magic in those moments — and the spark of manifesting such moments for the people he cooks for — that drives Royer. Sparking that magic, he says, is about imbuing an emotional aspect to each interaction. “I think we are in a period where people really care about good eating [and] are willing to engage in some experiences. And we, as restaurateurs, as chefs, have to deliver those experiences … When we manage to do that, it’s something really special.”
Lighting the flame
Royer’s appreciation for the delicate relationship between man and nare was cultivated at an early age. Hailing from a family of farmers in the rural area of Cantal, France, he grew up harvesting crops in his backyard. “We had a small farm, so I was always out and feeding the produce,” he recalls. “It’s a memory that I cherish a lot.”
At the same time, Royer started developing a deep love for food. “I was really little, maybe eight, ten years old,” he recalls of his first forays into the kitchen. “We were a very humble family; we didn’t have much money, but we always ate very well.”
He points to his maternal grandmother as a particular source of inspiration for him: “She was the person who fed us really well as kids,” he shares, adding that her cooking gave him an understanding of the emotional effect that food could have on people.
These experiences quickly shaped Royer’s path in life. “When it was time for me to decide to jump into a career, I told my mom, okay, I want to become a baker, at first, then a chef, then a pastry chef,” he recounts. Though he hadn’t quite settled on what exactly he wanted to do at the time, he knew he had found his place in the culinary world.
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And so he set off to learn all he could about everything in food. Reminiscing on those early days in his career, he says he was “fortunate to work in different kinds of restaurants”.
“When you first start, as a young cook, you need to learn your craft, so you need to spend time with people that inspire you,” he continues, pointing to figures such as Bernard Andrieux and Antonin Bonnet as mentors who cemented his motivation to persist in a notoriously difficult industry.
Royer’s career would bring him around the world to famed restaurants in Polynesia and London. In 2008, he landed in Singapore, where he worked at Brasserie Les Saveurs (now the Astor Grill) in The St Regis Singapore before a stint as executive chef at JAAN in Swissôtel The Stamford.
Coming into his own
Seven years after first coming to the city-state, Royer opened Odette, named after his grandmother. “At some point, I just felt it was time for me to open my restaurant, to tell my story,” he says of the full-circle moment. “To be really able to give your guts, your food and cuisine to your guests was something that I was aiming for.”
That desire to forge a path of his own came amid a maturing in his approach to food. “When I first arrived in Singapore, the cuisine I was doing was really, like, ‘French-French’ classics, but I think it was missing this little sense of place, this little magic that we now try to incorporate into the cooking [at Odette].
Having lived in Singapore for 15 years now, Royer feels his palate and the way he approaches food have definitely evolved. These changes have naturally woven their way into his cooking at Odette. Though he says the “DNA of the cuisine” at the restaurant remains French at its core, Asian influences have made their presence known in the food.
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This extends to everything from techniques to aesthetics. A bulk of the produce at Odette, for instance, is sourced from local farms, with a focus on ingredients of Southeast Asian origin. Salt and sugar are two things the restaurant now uses less to cater to local tastes, which lean towards strong flavours and aromas without too much salinity or sweetness. “We are using a lot more concentration, consomme, broth, [and] a lot more citrus in general,” says Royer.
Since opening in 2015, Odette has gone on to win numerous accolades, clinching its first two Michelin stars in 2016 and picking up a third in 2019. It has also become a mainstay on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list since first entering at number 86 in 2017; it placed at number 24 this year, remaining Singapore’s sole entry on the list.
Glitzy as all those honours and awards may be, Royer says his biggest achievement is seeing the impact his food has on people. “Seeing this dining room full of people, full of joy — it’s our biggest reward as a team.”
Braving the storms
As one might expect, things haven’t always been perfectly smooth sailing for Royer. The F&B industry is notorious for its cutthroat nature, not least in Singapore, where competition is high and the rents are higher.
“There’s a lot of challenges on a daily basis, weekly basis,” Royer admits, though he says he’s grateful to not have encountered any major roadblocks thus far. (“Touch wood,” he adds with a laugh.) The hurdles of running a restaurant go beyond the food itself, he says, with everything from difficult guests to “situations that … require a lot of psychology and self-confidence”.
The Covid-19 pandemic was an especially difficult period for Royer. “From one day to another, people tell you, ‘okay, you’ve gotta close the restaurant’, and you have zero sources of income suddenly,” he recalls of the early “circuit breaker” measures in Singapore. His immediate worries centred on the people he worked with: “We have about 50 people working in this ecosystem for this particular restaurant. My question was, ‘What am I going to do with those 50 people?’”
Keeping nimble was key to staying afloat in those days of no dining in. Royer and his team worked to create Odette at Home, a meal delivery programme, in two days. “Thank God we did that because it really allowed us to keep everyone on board.” Getting through that period without having to let anyone go was one of Royer’s “biggest prides”.
For Royer, navigating such challenges and the difficult environment for F&B businesses, in general, is about ensuring quality in all aspects. “Ultimately, the ones that remain are the ones who understand that it’s all about hospitality, flexibility, and delivering really high quality and really high consistency.”
Hurdles overcome, Royer has expanded his culinary empire, first with one-Michelin-starred Louise in Hong Kong and most recently with Claudine, the neo-French brasserie at Harding Road, named after his mother.
Timely intersections
Royer first became a friend of Blancpain in 2019. The relationship was a natural one, he says. “I think there’s a lot of similarities between high-end watchmaking and high-end cuisine. There’s a lot of focus on precision, and the notion of timing is super important in the kitchen.”
Even on a personal level, Royer sees affinities with Blancpain. He zooms in on the maison’s focus on the environment as one aspect that resonates with him deeply. “[Blancpain’s work] on nature; on the preservation of resources and preservation of ocean biodiversity — this is something that talks to me.”
Royer also visited the Blancpain manufacture in Vallée de Joux, where he witnessed firsthand the high level of precision and expertise required to put a watch together. “It was truly impressive,” he says of the experience. Seeing the watchmaking process up close also reminded him of the many-hands approach he takes with food: “In watchmaking, like in the kitchen, it’s about putting pieces together, and it’s all about teamwork as well. So I guess we are speaking pretty much the same language.”
Blancpain’s philosophy of “L’art de Vivre” — French for “the art of living” — also speaks to Royer and his ethos. The idea is centred around the intersection of haute cuisine and haute horology, celebrating the dedication that both fields have to craftsmanship, tradition and all-around excellence to create not just high-quality products but, more importantly, happy moments.
Over the past four decades, Blancpain has partnered with top chefs from around the world, with a total of over 100 Michelin stars among friends of the brand to date. It all began in 1986, with a specially engraved watch presented to Swiss chef Frédy Girardet when he won the title of World’s Best Chef.
As a friend of Blancpain, Royer joins peers at the top echelons of the culinary world, including Spanish chef Martín Berasategui, whose restaurants hold 12 Michelin stars altogether, as well as Thomas and Mathias Sühring, the German duo behind two-starred Sühring in Bangkok. Other past friends of the brand include Paul Bocuse and Joël Robuchon, who were named Chefs of the Century in 1989.
“The art of living is pretty much what we do in the restaurant as well,” Royer notes. “Some of the best memories we all have are related to food … L’art de vivre, when it comes to cuisine, music, art and design — enjoying the finest things in life — is something that really inspires us. We really try to create moments that hopefully will become memories for people.”
Nearly 30 years into his career, Royer retains the same love for food he developed as a child. One might say it’s even grown deeper with time. As our time together draws to a close, his appreciation for the art of dining is evident. More than the stars and accolades that may come and go, for Royer, food is a universe defined by the stories that shape our lives and the people who inspire us.
And in that, every bite becomes a timeless experience.
Stylist: Ong Weisheng. Makeup: Angel using Gucci Beauty. Hero image: Shawl collar cardigan in cashmere, collared shirt in cotton twill by Brunello Cucinelli; Bathyscaphe Chronographe Flyback timepiece by Blancpain. Inside image: Full flannel chalk striped peak lapel suit and pants in flecked silk, wool and cashmere, turtleneck pullover in cashmere, pocket square in silk by Brunello Cucinelli; Bathyscaphe Quantième Complet Phases de Lune by Blancpain.
