Not everyone can boast about staying married for 22 years, let alone run a flourishing F&B empire together, with two Michelin-starred restaurants to boot. But power couple Emmanuel Stroobant, 54, and his wife Edina Hong, 50, show that even with kids in tow, the sky’s the limit.
To discover the secret to their success, we should start from the moment they met in May 1998 on an arranged double date in Kuala Lumpur, where Belgian-born Stroobant was based.
Schooled in classic French cooking, the young Stroobant was already a well-established chef who had trained under maestros like Pierre Romayer from three-starred Maison de Bouche and Francis Dernouchamp from two-starred l’Hostellerie Saint-Roch. At 23, he opened his first restaurant in his hometown of Liege, Belgium, after which he did stints in Australia and the US.
“A friend dragged me to this dinner to see if I could help the new owners of a start-up restaurant in PR and marketing matters,” recalls Malaysian-Chinese Hong who comes from a marketing communications background. “He said the chef will be there and that he’s handsome and single, and bet me a week’s worth of house chores that I wouldn’t be able to snag him. He lost the bet,” she adds, laughing.
Needless to say, their first meeting went swimmingly and Hong moved into his apartment barely a week later. “The water in my apartment wasn’t working, so the plan was to stay in his guest room till things got fixed, but I never really moved into his guest room,” she recounts, blushing. “And she never left my apartment, either!” chortles Stroobant.
One week led to one year, and the pair was discussing marriage. These plans were hastened after Stroobant received an offer to move to Singapore to head the now-defunct Fig Leaf restaurant. “I won’t move for boyfriends, so he had to put a ring on it first,” quips Hong.
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The pair officially tied the knot in May 2000 in a church wedding, followed by a 300-pax traditional Chinese reception at Allson Klana Resort in Seremban, now known as Klana Resort. “My parents wanted a typical Chinese wedding with shark fin soup, but to their horror, we served everyone canapes instead,” she relates cheekily. Even at his own wedding, Stroobant had to involve himself in the kitchen somehow and baked a tall croquembouche cake which precariously hung from the ceiling. “You can imagine how tricky the cake-cutting ceremony was!” he laughs.
Life on the little red dot
With hardly any time for a honeymoon, Stroobant relocated to Singapore in the same month, bringing along some of his kitchen crew, while Hong followed a few months later. Life was exciting for the newlyweds and work at the Fig Leaf had been flourishing for a year up until the management decided to relocate and expand from a 35-seater to 100-seater restaurant.
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“Emmanuel wasn’t able to produce quality cuisine for this kind of quantity, so he parted ways,” shares Hong. “At this point, we didn’t really know what to do, so we went to Belgium for our honeymoon. Dining out gave us the answer — to start our own restaurant, but we had no idea where to open it or what to call it.”
She continues: “Toward the tail-end of our holiday we had settled on three names: Aubergine, Bouchon or Saint Pierre. During a visit to Notre Dame, we walked into one of the many chapels there to pray and when we looked up, we saw the name Saint Pierre. So, Saint Pierre it was.”
They opened Saint Pierre at Central Mall in December 2000, serving modern French cuisine with an Asian edge, at a time when the market was largely dominated by traditional French bistros and American steakhouses. The couple enjoyed many years of success while simultaneously opening more dining concepts like the now-defunct Brussels Sprouts specialising in Belgian mussels, and family-style bistro Picotin (now owned by another company).
Just like fashion, the F&B industry started to evolve into one that was more casual and communal, which prompted the couple to redefine their branding. In 2013, Saint Pierre was relocated to Sentosa Cove with a more relaxed concept, doing away with the starched linens and introducing an a la carte menu. But soon, Stroobant was itching to return to his fine dining roots, so they packed up and moved to One Fullerton in March 2016, where they still reside today.
As a testament to his big return to refined cooking, Stroobant received his first Michelin star in 2017 and his second star in 2019, which he maintained last year. The other notch in his belt is two-Michelin-starred edomae sushi-ya Shoukouwa, which also belongs to the Emmanuel Stroobant Group.
Today, the holding company manages half a dozen brands including casual restaurant Kingdom of Belgians, SQUE Rotisserie and Alehouse, plus institutional catering arm Mycelium Catering. It is believed that the company is currently worth between $13 million and $15 million.
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Together in love and work
Together in love and workAll through the running of the business, Hong, who is the marketing communications director for the group, has been Stroobant’s right-hand woman handling all marketing and administrative matters including finance, legal, and HR affairs, plus food tastings and wine acquisition.
The more pragmatic of the two, Hong is unabashed about being the one who wears the pants in the relationship. She rules the company with an iron fist and is unapologetic in the calculated way she handles work matters so that Stroobant can wholly focus on his craft in the kitchen. “I’m not the easiest boss or wife, but I’ve protected him from falling over the cliff many times,” she says.
The measure of their success was not just Michelin stars and profit margins, but that they did it together as partners in life and work. Besides, who else can you trust in this cut-throat business other than your spouse, right? “Very often, when you are in business with someone, it is strictly about money and there will be no depth in the relationship. We are the other way around,” Stroobant said in a previous interview.
Jumping into parenthood
Jumping into parenthoodThis dynamic duo truly personifies the adage “the whole is greater than the sum of their parts”, and yet they could not be more opposite. A secret to their lasting marriage is giving each other plenty of space to pursue their individual passions. While Stroobant, a certified yoga teacher, enjoys daily meditations and pranayamas which help ground him and unleash untapped creativity, Hong is an avid gamer who enjoys battling it out in online role-playing games such as World of WarCraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Final Fantasy.
“Emmanuel will go on his yoga retreats and I’ll be at a gaming convention, but we will plan a holiday together just the two of us and take a semi-professional trip where we’re mostly just eating,” she says.
Even with so much going for them, the couple felt it was time to take their relationship to the next level by having children. They adopted two girls from Malaysia — Keira, now 13, in 2009, and Mia, now 10, in 2012.
Parenthood has certainly changed them in more ways than one. While Hong is a strict tiger mum, she has become a lot more patient. “Prior to having kids, I never had the patience to explain my actions or reason with people. I blame this on being an only child where I had to figure things out on my own. But as a boss and a mother, it’s become clear that I needed to slow down and take the time to talk things through. My staff also performed better when they understood me,” she shares.
It’s not uncommon for most new parents to curb bad habits and become more disciplined and responsible so that they can lead by example. Fun-dad Stroobant turned his life completely around by not only quit- ting smoking and drinking, but also becoming a vegetarian to live healthier and longer.
Inspired by Jamie’s School Dinners by Jamie Oliver, Stroobant wants to encourage healthy eating habits from young by way of his institution catering arm Mycelium, which currently prepares school meals for XCL World Academy and EHL Hospitality Business School. “This is really the next phase for us. When you’re doing school food, it’s not about the refinement, but ensuring that you’re preparing wholesome food that is tasty,” says Hong.
As family businesses go, does the couple plan to hand the reins over to their daughters one day to keep their legacy alive? “For the longest time, we always thought we would have to find an exit for the restaurant once Emmanuel retires, but I’m not sure anymore because our eldest Keira seems to have an interest in cooking. Let us see,” Hong replies.
The art of reinvention
Over the years, Stroobant has been developing and redeveloping his cooking style from making “tonnes of foie gras” to none at all, and now focusing on a mindful menu that is vegetable- and seafood-centric.
Although he still imports cheeses and certain vegetables from Europe, Stroobant prefers to source perishables from Japan, and buys eggs, spices and flowers for garnishing from local farms. “Importing ingredients from France would take us days to receive, but I can raise my order for fish from Japan now and receive it tomorrow. It also helps that we have a local on-ground to curate the ingredients for both Saint Pierre and Shoukouwa,” he explains. “The quality of the ingredients we get is something I’m very proud of, and I believe is a contributing factor behind us making the leap from one star to two.”
His five newly-refreshed tasting menus inspired by the Zen Circle bear the same structure — Lunch Menus (from $168), Elegance and Opulence ($388 each), and caviar-laden Indulgence ($488). The food is delicious, as always, but you can see a difference in the refinement of his plating which look more dainty and feminine. We only wish that he could be bolder in his choice of tableware and cutlery.
“He’s a very instinctive chef. He looks at something and knows how to remodel it and miraculously those are his best dishes. But then he can’t remember how to recreate it!” says Hong.
From brand diversification to constant reinvention, the Stroobants have also shown their dexterity in manoeuvring the pandemic with clever home-dining initiatives such as Virtual Saint Pierre, where bento sets of cold entrees and starters were delivered to diners and introduced via Zoom.
“After we got our second Michelin star, I was very concerned that our reputation would be diminished if we didn’t execute this properly. So, we made sure not to deliver food that could be reheated. Everything had to be consumed as is, and we would collect the bento boxes the next day, and leave them with a little gift. I think we were the first restaurant to roll this out,” says Hong.
This clever idea was borne out of a need to solve a problem after a customer had booked the restaurant for a party just before Covid-19 hit. “Circuit breaker happened but he wanted to go ahead as planned and asked if we could deliver the food to his house instead. Then I thought, hey, let’s do this for everyone!” shares Hong.
Another hit was Room Service by Saint Pierre, launched last year, where a family of four to five can enjoy a multi-course meal plated on exquisite tableware delivered room service-style. “Necessity is the mother of invention. We launched this to cater to our older customers who didn’t like Zoom dinners,” she reveals.
Romancing the season
As Valentine’s Day is round the corner, how do they plan to celebrate the day? “We work. Valentine’s Day is the biggest, most important day of the year because we make the most sales. I don’t celebrate birthdays, anniversaries or even Valentine’s. Every celebration is a work day for us,” says Hong.
To her, small acts of love speak louder than grand gestures, such as spending quiet moments on the couch together, chatting in bed, or playing board games with their daughters. “Now that we’re 20 years into marriage, loving a person is quite different. Sometimes being practical is the way to keep people together. For Valentine’s Day, don’t give me flowers, they will die. Just give me money or buy me a nice handbag,” she jokes.
Over my four-hour lunch interview with them, I observed one thing — that while the couple lovingly take jabs at each other and try to out-talk one another (mostly Hong), there’s a tenderness in their eyes and body language that shows that the romance is very much alive. And while the lines are blurred in the husband-wife work dynamic, their stark difference in personality is how they perform checks and balances on each other which helps drive the business forward.
Hong says: “I don’t think there’s such a thing as the perfect husband-wife working relationship. We have good days and bad days and we still bicker like teenagers. Regardless of whether you’re married or not, I think we all have to pick our battles and move on. I mean, if your husband doesn’t contradict you sometimes, then something’s wrong!”
