Bjorn Shen’s New Space For Small’s Pizza Joint Will Serve Hotpot Omakase Too

First, I would like to emphasise that we are not opening a new restaurant. It will be a test kitchen where I will have people come in about two to three nights a week. Small’s (his four-seater 10-month-old private dining space that once served as Artichoke’s office and serves pizza omakase) was always a space for my consulting projects. It was a room that I’d built to seat our consulting clients and do tastings for them. I do a lot of consulting jobs, so the idea of feeding members of the public was secondary. It was always meant as a space for us to create menus. The new space will be no different. I want to keep the same thing going, but with an expanded stage.

I don’t want people to come in with the expectation that this is a restaurant. We will have three staff who are there to research, experiment and have fun. And people are allowed to join us for the tastings. I literally want people to take off their shoes when they come in, just like they would when they come to our house. So no walk-ins; reservations only.

When are you opening?

We are looking to open in December.

How big is the new space?

It’s about 1,000 square feet and (with current distancing regulations), I can take three groups of four each night (total 12 pax).

The way that Small’s is selling right now, it has to be groups of four because when you do the pizza omakase, you need four people to share the pizzas. If two people come, they can’t share so many pizzas and they can’t have as much variety. As long as the concept is pizza omakase, it’ll be always be groups of four. (The private dining concept) will continue to be pizza-centric for the first few months because I still feel like I haven’t scratched the surface of pizza dough and what else we can do with pizza.

What will pricing be like?

At Small’s, it was always just me and four guests all night long. Here, in exchange for not necessarily having me there, prices will drop slightly, but will be determined by what’s on the menu and how much the ingredients cost. Say if I’m using seafood, then it might cost a bit more. But price points will sit at the lowest end of fine-dining, which is about $125 per head. Again, this is on the basic end and depends on what I’m using in the menu and how much labour goes into the food.

What about the menu?

Among my ideas is a steamboat omakase, where the staff will cook for people, meaning that we are the ones poaching things for diners and serving it in individual plates. This was an idea I’ve toyed with. I want to move away from the notion that steamboat ingredients must be thinly sliced, so poaching bigger things like thicker cuts of meat that are not too marbled, like a beautiful steak. They eat like a really good piece of roast beef. So it would be like an atas lok lok (traditionally a mobile steamboat where diners dip food on skewers into hot soup) concept. Every course would be one or two morsels of food, so you’re looking at a minimum of 10 courses.

Pictured: Bjorn’s Squid Ink & Chilli Pizza.

Smalls will become the test kitchen for Artichoke. It will continue serving the pizza omakase until we move to the new space.

What was the first half of the year like for Artichoke, especially during the Circuit Breaker?

We lost a lot of money during the Circuit Breaker, even after government support. The first month we lost $35,000 because we decided not to do deliveries. Case numbers were still quite high and I wanted to keep the team safe. So I told them, “It’s going to cost us, but I’d rather you guys stay home, stay safe and don’t leave the house. If you come to the restaurant and you get sick, then the restaurant has to shut down. So I’d rather that not happen.”

How much money did you lose because of the Circuit Breaker and Covid-19?

Government support only covers locals, their base salaries and not CPF. So we lost about $35,000 in the first month, which is okay, it’s not huge. But when the news came out that they were going to extend the CB, I said, “Ok guys, I don’t think we can do this anymore.” So we decided to come back in shifts, in different teams to do a simple delivery menu. The restaurants that started deliveries in the first month already took all the packaging and the delivery drivers. And we were only starting to learn how to do it in the second month. I think it was a failure on my part as a boss to not have anticipated that this would go on for more than a month. I took a gamble and I lost but I did it with good intentions.

On the second month, we came back and struggled to find packaging and people to do our deliveries. We struggled with how to split the team into two, how to create a delivery platform, how to take and accept deliveries without paying exorbitantly for partnerships. It was a really steep learning curve, which we got through, but despite the support that came through, we still made a loss that second month, which was about a third of the first month’s loss.

I can’t put a figure on our total loss because a lot of government assistance came later and in lump sums. Plus, a lot of the government support schemes are not just to cover what you’ve bled, but to also cover future possibilities. It’s a hedge in our future risk. Pictured: one of the massive hoagie sarnies Bjorn sold during the Circuit Breaker.

Now that you’ve been through the Circuit Breaker, what have you learnt and how have you changed your business model to avoid similar losses?

I’m one of those daft guys who hasn’t learnt from my mistakes. We’re following government regulations and taking all forms of precautions for staff and customers, but I still refuse to be on a delivery platform. We’re still romanticising the idea of a restaurant where people come and eat together. So we don’t want to pivot to delivery kitchens or ghost kitchens. We don’t want to have ghost brands — you know, the sort of things that other people are talking about right now like central kitchens and investing in technology because I’m an old-school guy and part of me is still in denial. So, if anyone dies first, it will be me.

So, you’ve learnt nothing from Covid-19?

Nothing! It’s like the Darwinian awards. If anyone has to die off because of stupidity, it will be me and Artichoke. I will openly admit that I’m one of those stubborn old-school, change-resistant guys.

It’s the same as before because we have a big outdoor space to spread out our customers so we haven’t lost that much capacity.

Have you had your share of difficult customers who try to break the Covid-19 dining rules?

We close at 10.30pm so drinking past that time is not an issue. What shocks me is that people still show up in groups of 10 and ask for a table, which makes we wonder where they were before they came to our restaurant. The moment we know that they are together, then it’s unlawful, so we can’t accommodate them. And then they act shocked, like they didn’t know.

Pictured: Bjorn’s banh mi pizza, from Smalls.

I might not be so stupid to shut for the month. I think there’s some degree of intellect left in me. I’ll probably still find ways to keep the staff safe and do deliveries. We were saving money for renovations for Artichoke anyway, so we had that money. We’ve now pushed renovations to next year because we’re saving money for cash flow. If the Circuit Breaker comes back, it will be big, so why would I want to spend $100,000 on renovations when we could close due to the pandemic in two months’ time again? It’s dumb to make any major investments right now.

What can you tell us about MasterChef Singapore Season Two?

Nothing. I can tell you nothing.

The new Small’s will be at 115 King George’s Avenue.

Artichoke restaurant (and current four-seater Small’s) is at 161 Middle Rd, S188978. https://www.bjornshen.com/