by Jaime Ee

WHEN Jaime Tan laid eyes on Kursaal Palace overlooking the sea in San Sebastian, Spain, she knew immediately that she wanted her own restaurant to look like that.

'It looked like a lantern, like a kind of beacon drawing people to it,' says the owner of Tin Hill Bistro and Wine Bar, an eye-catching glass and wall structure on Bukit Timah Road just before Sixth Avenue.

The idea, she says, was to brighten up the corner of the street that Tin Hill - a literal translation of Bukit Timah - takes up in the stretch of restaurants that used to house the now defunct Corduroy & Finch. Indeed, there is no missing the bright and shiny restaurant that stands out almost like a lighthouse on that street.

Already, despite its soft opening a week ago, nearby residents and folks from other parts of the city have been drawn to this semi-casual, two-level bistro that serves hearty sandwiches, salads, pastas, meats and excellent desserts at digestible prices. The restaurant is the result of a decade-long dream Ms Tan has nursed since graduating from university in 1998. Wanting to get some work experience under her belt, she put her F&B inclinations on hold while she went into banking before going into financial corporate communications.

After four-and-a-half years in her communications job, she enrolled in New York's Institute of Culinary Education where she spent one-and-a-half years, which included a working stint in a restaurant there. Even so, she returned to her communications job when she returned to Singapore in 2005, and it wasn't until November last year when the restaurant premises became available that she quit her job and devoted all her time to Tin Hill.

'When I first graduated, I didn't want to start my own F&B business,' she explains. 'I wanted to work for someone and understand the business world. The second time I came back, I wanted to understand the Singapore market and see what I could offer based on my experiences in the US.'

The concept for Tin Hill came about as she realised that a lot of working professionals in Singapore didn't have time to cook and didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for a simple meal they could otherwise cook at home. So she developed a menu that was healthy and reflected an Asian-Western sensibility to cater to people with different palates. In fact, the menu is largely influenced by her family and friends. Her mother, she says, doesn't like Western food, so she created dishes with a bit of spice and Asian flair like her Asian beef salad, while for Westerners not used to Asian food can sample little Asian touches like crispy tau pok (bean curd skin) in her mushroom and watercress salad.

Although you don't usually find restaurant owners themselves seeing to customers and taking their orders, Ms Tan is the ultimate hands-on owner who welcomes diners, even arranging special cakes for those celebrating their birthday. As a result, she's developing a regular clientele which can't get enough of the pulled pork pides, giant puff pastry covered seafood stews and excellent desserts like a roasted banana bread pudding, baked apples with ice cream and French beignets with chocolate sauce.

It's still early days and she's still learning the ropes, but the hard-working restaurateur is well on her way to being the shining light of Bukit Timah.

Tin Hill Wine Bar & Bistro, 797 Bukit Timah Road.
Tel: 6463-3811

This article was first published in The Business Times on June 14, 2008.