How this Singaporean came to make pasta ‘as good as an Italian grandmother'
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How this Singaporean came to make pasta 'equally good every bit an Italian grandmother'
A Singaporean confront might non exist what you lot await every bit the emblem of meticulously hand-crafted pasta. Still individual dining chef Lee Yum Hwa has carved that very stardom for himself though his passion for the rustic Italian tradition.
Lee Yum Hwa is the cocky-taught pasta maker behind individual dining outfit Benfatto95. (Photo: Kelvin Chia)
sixteen Mar 2022 06:25AM (Updated: 21 May 2022 xi:48AM)
Every fourth dimension Lee Yum Hwa sees a plate of pasta swimming in sauce, his heart breaks a little. "Pasta should exist about texture and simplicity. The sauce is the secondary layer, the embellishment of the dish," said the 38-yr-old every bit we sit past a wooden table in his family'south warmly lit semi-discrete abode.
This is typically the sentiment of wizened Italian pasta maestros, who prize the texture and intrinsic flavour of well-made pasta in a higher place all else. But here in Singapore, where native Italian chefs have been serving hand-made pasta in restaurants for decades, Lee has become the improbable face of the artisanal art.
In the xviii months since he established Benfatto95, a individual dining establishment dedicated to the intricacies of making and serving fresh pastas, Lee has earned a cult following of aficionados who appreciate his devotion to the exacting, finicky arts and crafts.
"A lot of restaurants employ pasta as a canvas, but I think it should stand out on its own. I'm a pasta maker rather than a chef or a melt." – Lee Yum Hwa
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THE ITALIAN CONNECTION
The flint that sparked lee's passion was a solo trip to Italian republic in 2016. "I went to Milan, Bologna and Tuscany, and spent a lot of fourth dimension at little trattorias where I would sit down and slowly bask the bite and flavours of the different pasta dishes."
The inability to recapture the experience at restaurants back habitation led to something of an epiphany: He would larn how to do it himself.
The internet became his finest resource. Lee watched YouTube videos, connected with pasta makers on Instagram, and read whatsoever he could on the fine art of making pasta. A twelvemonth subsequently, his honeymoon provided another excuse to return to Italy where the newlyweds ate their way through Lombardy, Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and Sicily.
When they returned, Lee swapped his task equally a taxation consultant for one as a line melt at Middle Eastern-inspired restaurant Artichoke, owned by his secondary schoolhouse friend Bjorn Shen. A year later, he felt fix to open up his own restaurant, which Shen, a seasoned restaurateur familiar with the pitfalls of the business organisation, advised him against. "It was Bjorn that suggested I start with private dining instead," he said. That's how Benfatto95 was built-in.
To eat at Benfatto95 (which translates to well-fabricated in Italian, while 95 is a nod to the address) is to go familiar with a hearty parade of pastas of varying shapes and textures. Guests might relish Bari-fashion orecchiette, capellacci di zucca (pasta stuffed with pumpkin and squash in browned butter), silky ribbons of mitt-cut tajarin, and extruded tubes of canestri tossed in a spicy amatriciana sauce.
Where YouTube has been a valuable instructor in these creations, Instagram has opened doors to the real world, giving Lee the opportunity to refine his technique under pasta maestras such equally Tokyo-based Sardinian Claudia Casu, whom he has go firm friends with.
"I met Claudia on Instagram. She makes this thread-like Sardinian pasta chosen filindeu, which has received a lot of limelight recently and has the reputation equally the rarest pasta in the globe, so I judge that's one of the things that brought me to her," he explained.
Lee visited Casu twice in Tokyo last year, spending four to five days at her home each fourth dimension, observing and helping her make pasta. They met again in Sardinia, where Casu conducted a workshop on ancient Sardinian formats. "I was the just immature Chinese male among the small group of middle-aged Italian women," he said. "I felt very out of place since I don't speak whatsoever Italian, merely nosotros were all interested in making pasta and became quite shut-knit."
The duo went on to the town of Morgongiori, where Casu arranged for them to meet a lady who showed them how to make twisty ring-shaped lorighittas. Lee and then flew to Puglia where he met with another Instagram friend, a local pasta maker who taught him how to make Bari-style orrechiette.
Further along in Emilia-Romagna, he stopped by cookery schoolhouse La Vecchia Scuola Bolognese, where he learnt the art of rolling pasta with a mattarello (a long wooden rolling pivot) earlier heading to another maestra well-nigh Ferrara, who taught him how to make cappellacci di zucca Ferrarasi, a traditional filled pasta, among other shapes.
These experiences gave him balls and credibility to his piece of work. "Before meeting them, I was always figuring it out on my own without any formal or professional person management. Plainly, there is no i hither [in Singapore] qualified enough to teach me or show me the techniques in this very niche surface area that I'k sitting in. So by coming together and working with them, I was able to become the conviction and also their endorsement that any I was doing and keep to exercise is in line with the traditional practices and techniques," Lee said.
ALL-CONSUMING PASTA
Dorsum home, pasta quite literally fills his days. Lee serves dinner for between 6 to ten guests four to half-dozen times a week, and as a unmarried-man functioning, answers emails, cooks and cranks out pastas for his dinners and the occasional retail auction.
Expert pasta is all nearly practice, and finding the time to strop his labour-intensive craft has proven the most difficult affair of all. "You tin can larn from the all-time, but you have to practise, and it'due south difficult to observe the fourth dimension to between all that," he admitted.
Still, he has the respect of Italian chefs who adore Lee's dedication and efforts towards their hallowed culinary traditions. Mirko Febbrile, chef de cuisine of Michelin-starred Italian restaurant Braci, said, "I admire and respect Yum Hwa's strength, perseverance, patience, dedication and enquiry; his long hours of study, the trips to many regions to discover a new type of pasta, technique or interesting recipe.
When asked what surprises him most nearly his new profession, Lee's is quick to reply: "The biggest surprise is how long I've lasted. This (private dining) set-up is only viable in the curt-term because I don't know how long individual kitchens volition be trending for… and I can't do this when I'm 80."
Yet he keeps at it because "it's the only affair I know that keeps me happy".
"People ask me why I'm interested in pasta. If you await effectually, in that location are few people who appreciate this production in itself. A lot of restaurants use pasta as a canvas, just I recollect information technology should stand out on its own. I'g a pasta maker rather than a chef or a cook, and so dissimilar chefs and restaurants that employ pasta as a canvas for sauces and embellishments like truffles and ruby prawns, I'g almost tradition, techniques and how pasta is engineered," he said.
"My travels and work in the past year have helped me sympathise how a pasta should be fabricated so that it'due south enjoyable and palatable," he continued.
"And that's not past drowning it in sauce?" I venture.
"I judge that's the result of adapting it to the local palate," he answered diplomatically.
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/people/private-dining-singapore-benfatto95-177391
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