Eventually, she launched Homi Kitchen, a supper club run out of her apartment where she serves Singaporean dishes to guests. What started as a nostalgic dinner for her social bubble soon evolved into something bigger. Beyond the supper club, Tan is on a mission to create a brand that can make “Singaporean flavours easily accessible on supermarket shelves for everyone in the UK”, said the young entrepreneur.
In early 2025, Tan went on to launch her first product – the Giga Chicken Rice Chilli sauce, a flavour-packed condiment inspired by one Singapore’s most beloved dishes, with more products already in the pipeline.
FROM LAW TO LOCAL FLAVOURS
Born and raised in Singapore, Tan grew up in a three-generation household in Serangoon, with her grandmother, an avid cook, cooking Teochew dishes every day for the family. “She’s the queen of the kitchen. I would try to help, but quite often I would be making things worse,” Tan recalled with a laugh.
It wasn’t until she studied law at the University of Oxford in the UK that she began experimenting with cooking herself. “I missed food from home, and the funny thing is, I didn’t have a kitchen in my college accommodation. I only had a rice cooker, and I had all my sauces and ingredients in a box.”
She made do with the limited setup, cooking Asian comfort dishes such as chicken curry and katsu curry in that one pot. She often invited friends to gather in her room for dinner, who brought over their own bowls and cutlery.
After completing her legal training back in Singapore, Tan made the jump to move to London full-time. “Within the legal industry, London is one of the big hot spots for top-notch firms and teams. It is also a very international, cosmopolitan city,” she said of the move.
A few years into her legal career, Tan quickly realised that her true passion laid elsewhere. “What sparked the greatest joy for me was being in the consumer retail space, and seeing my customers really enjoying my food and being grateful for the comfort that a simple bowl of noodles brought them,” said Tan.
Homi Kitchen was a way for her to indulge in her love for cooking while balancing a demanding day job. “Why I started the supper club was to also test my theory that there’s a growing interest in Singaporean food in the UK. It was a way to meet people who weren’t necessarily from Singapore or Malaysia to find out how they know about the cuisine and why they were curious enough to try it,” Tan explained.
