i. Biography
In Singapore, Straits-Chinese and Peranakan cooking often starts with materials that read as everyday staples: rice, curry, sambals, family recipes. In Malcolm Lee’s hands, those materials remain tied to the domestic kitchen while being worked through the discipline of a professional one. The craft depends on layered flavor, remembered proportion, and the authority of recipes carried through families rather than treated as static reference points.
The Path
Professional technique entered the frame through At-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy (2008), where Malcolm Lee trained before developing the cooking now associated with him. That grounding gave structure to a practice already tied to memory and place: tradition treated as material to be handled carefully, revisited, and carried forward without severing it from the household cooking that formed it. The executive chef and owner role at Candlenut Kitchen puts Straits-Chinese and Peranakan cooking into a contemporary dining-room setting. For Malcolm, the work sits between stewardship and authorship: preserving the flavors that shaped him while presenting them with clarity, refinement, and confidence. The line is not away from home cooking, but deeper into it, with craft used to sharpen dishes, textures, and aromas rooted in family tables.
The Work Today
At Candlenut in Singapore, where Lee is Head Chef and owner, traditional Straits-Chinese and Peranakan food is kept legible in its essence and complexity while being given contemporary, authentic, refined twists. The cooking favors patience: spice pastes built for depth, flavors layered rather than hurried, and dishes that carry both appetite and ancestry. Mum’s Chicken Curry makes the inheritance explicit. The named dish holds family recipe as working archive: domestic knowledge brought into public service without being stripped of its original tenderness. In a cuisine built on nuance, balance, and accumulated knowledge, that kind of dish is not nostalgia alone; it is a practical bridge between private memory and restaurant expression. The Contemporary Straits approach at Candlenut looks at Singaporeans’ familiar foods through a contemporary lens and connects them to regional heritage cuisines. In Lee’s work, rice, curry, sambals, and family recipes remain central materials, handled with attention to memory, place, and inherited flavor rather than reinvention for its own sake.
In Their Words “As I grow older, I continue to realise that the menus I create in my restaurants are actually grounded in the comfort foods of my childhood, as well as the dishes and flavours that I love to eat the most — rice, curry, and sambals.”
Acclaim
Malcolm Lee has received Michelin Guide Singapore — One Michelin Star for Candlenut. Recognition for Candlenut includes One Michelin Star; first Michelin star awarded for Peranakan cuisine (2016). The award marks a specific trade milestone while the cooking continues to do the less visible work: carrying the complexity of Straits-Chinese and Peranakan food into a contemporary dining room with its emotional center still intact.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Malcolm
What is Malcolm Lee's current role?
Malcolm Lee is Head Chef and owner.
What recognition has Malcolm Lee received?
One Michelin Star for Candlenut; first Michelin star awarded for Peranakan cuisine (2016).
