Popular Shokupan Toast Cafe Paaru No Longer Sells Bread, Now Serves $172 Dinner For Two
The hipster café used to attract queues for its affordable fluffy milk toast. After its extreme rebrand, it now serves pricey Japanese claypot (donabe) meals. Why?
When Japanese cafe Paaru opened at Pearl’s Hill Terrace in May last year, our social media feed was flooded with gushing posts about its hip Zen interior and tasty house-baked shokupan (Japanese milk bread). The in-house bakery, Paaru Bakery, was also located just a few units down in the same building, and sold its signature milk bread along with a selection of cakes and pastries. The cafe seemed to be drawing in large crowds clamouring for an aesthetics cafehopping experience, so we were surprised when it underwent a major rebranding at the start of this year.
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In January, Paaru announced on Instagram that it was “closed to walk-ins until further notice.” Since then, it has rejigged their opening hours to only specific lunch and dinner time slots. It is currently focusing on their ‘Donabe (Japanese claypot) Dinners’ from Thursdays to Saturdays, from 6pm to 10pm.
Up until recently, it also used to serve ‘Shoku Lunch’ on Tuesdays from 12pm to 3pm, but seems to have halted this lunch offering since February (its last social post about the lunch was in January this year). Gone also is the well-received shokupan menu at the cafe, which had crowd-fave dishes like French Toast Shokupan ($12) and Scrambled Eggs on Shokupan ($14).
Hinted at manpower and tenancy issues
Not much was revealed about the reason for Paaru’s operational rebranding either. The cafe’s owners declined to comment when 8days.sg reached out to them.
In an Instagram post, however, they mentioned manpower and tenancy issues, saying: “Given the circumstances with 195 Pearl's Hill Terrace and the shortened runway to make business operations tenable, after all the sunk-in costs & compounded by continuing manpower challenges, we have had to make some difficult but necessary maneuvers.”
For context, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) announced last November that it had plans to redevelop Pearl’s Hill, and as such, the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) will reclaim the land there once the tenants’ leases expire in March 2025.
This means that several F&B businesses, including Paaru, will have to relocate elsewhere by next year. Other than the cafe, Paaru’s owners also run food-and-retail concept Asaru Studio a few doors down, which will be impacted by the redevelopment plans too.
A change in dining concept and operational hours would make sense for Paaru, given its manpower struggle with hiring enough staff like with many F&B businesses in Singapore. At the end of January, the cafe posted a job notice on Instagram for a few positions, including a sous chef.
Donabe Dinners
For now, you will have to make a reservation on Paaru’s website to dine there.
Its Donabe Dinners start at $172 for two pax, and feature a seasonal main, four sides, soup and dessert for sharing. For April, the main dish will be sea bass served in a lettuce broth with kailan.
It is also uncertain if the Shoku Tuesdays lunches will be making a comeback anytime soon, but it’s still listed on Paaru’s website — just that there’s no option to make a booking for now. A Shoku Lunch for one is priced at $35, and comes with a drink, a main dish (black cod gindara was served at the last seating in Jan), three sides, rice and soup.
Shokupan may be available in the future
While it may be tough for now to get Paaru’s popular pastries, like financiers and madeleines, there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel. In an IG comment, the cafe shared that it “hopes to bake once a week and release shokupan for online sales and pickup, with intermittent pop-ups along the way” in the future. We’ll just have to keep our eyes peeled to get that bread.
Paaru is at #01-61 Pearl’s Hill Studio, 195 Pearl’s Hill Terrace, S168976. No walk-ins accepted. Dinner reservations via Paaru’s website. More info via Instagram.
Photos: Instagram/Paaru.sg, Instagram/Vie.de.simplicite
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