Jason Atherton

The chef-patron of Pollen Street Social and Soho’s new Social Eating House has three Singapore restaurants and is often eating and drinking his way through Asia. He talks to Alicia Miller about cocktails and congee

When I was 16, I read a book that changed my life

– Dining in France, by Gault-Millau. It featured dishes by chefs like Pierre Gagnaire, Joel Robuchon and Marc Haeberlin of L’Auberge deI’ll (who I later worked for). As a kid growing up in Skegness, I had never seen food like this. That’s when I knew I didn’t just want to be a chef, but a great chef. I had to move to London.

Living in Spain shaped the way

I think about food. I worked at Ferran Adria’s famous El Bulli, but the local food was wonderful too. In Roses, there was Rafa’s (00 34 972 254 003), a little husband and wife restaurant with the best gambas, sardines, red mullet… Sadly, Ferran told a journalist it had the best tapas and it became a tourist trap! I go back to Spain every year, eating at El Celler de Can Roca in Girona (https://cellercanroca.com/index.htm), and at Sant Pau in Sant Pol de Mar (https://www.ruscalleda.cat/es).

I’d love to eat my way around South America.

I’ve never been, but the products are fascinating. It would be nice to learn how dishes like ceviche have become so famous. When I go, top of my restaurant list is DOM in Sao Paulo (http://domrestaurante.com.br/pt-br/home.html), and Pujol in Mexico City (https://www.pujol.com.mx/).

The hawker food in Singapore is amazing.

In Geylang, ‘the restaurant with no name’ has some of the best seafood in the city, including oyster omlette with crab. Near my tapas bar, Esquina, there’s a famous congee shop – you can have it with frog’s legs, roasted chicken, Beijing duck, and with a cracked egg overtop which cooks into the rice as you fold it together.

One of my favourite places in Singapore

is Tiong Bahru wet market. There’s great fish, of course, but just above it is one of my favourite hawker stations – it’s famous for egg dishes. After eating there I go downstairs, to the back of the market, and there’s a bakery run by Cynthia Chu – it’s the best in Singapore.

There’s nothing like a good negroni

– if you’re a bartender in one of my restaurants, you have to know how to make one properly. In Singapore, I like 28 Hong Kong Street (28hks.com) – what the bartender doesn’t know about drinks isn’t worth knowing. In London, I’m often at Experimental Cocktail Cub (http://www.chinatownecc.com/) or the Groucho Club (https://www.thegrouchoclub.com/).

After a long shift you want to eat something easy

which is why I like Meat Liquor (meatliquor.com) or Bone Daddies for their ramen (https://www.bonedaddies.com/). With my family, it’s more often a trip to Burger and Lobster (https://www.burgerandlobster.com/) – my kids love the lobster roll – or Barrafina (http://www.barrafina.co.uk/). The suckling pig sells out quickly, so I’ll often phone up in advance and ask them to save some.

If there were Michelin stars for drinking,

Sat Bains would have ten. We were cooking a special dinner in Singapore together, and ended up at a club until 5am. We needed to be in the kitchen at 8am so I wanted to leave; he said we could, if we had just one more drink. So he ordered one… bottle of gin.