With Singapore’s mercurial blink-and-it’s-shuttered dining scene, the value of storied tradition cannot be overstated—and restaurateur Tay Su-Lyn is keenly aware of this. At the flagship Violet Oon Singapore at Dempsey, she gestures towards a thoughtfully curated wall of artefacts anchoring the private dining room.
Among them is a sepia-toned photograph of her mother Violet—widely regarded as the doyenne of Singapore Peranakan cuisine—as a doe-eyed ingenue caught mid-performance. To its left is a vivid wildlife portrait of Violet Cuckoo, the spirit animal of the restaurant’s namesake chef.
With a glowing jade bar and gleaming floral Peranakan ceiling tiles from their private collection, Tay has created a tony destination dining spot imbued with a sense of wonder and refinement. “We had a lot fun adding surprises, ensuring different pockets of space so that there’s an element of discovery and adventure,” says the Director and Creative Director, who oversees concept development, marketing, and interior design for the brand.
This ambitious endeavour set in a 6,000-sq-ft restored heritage building was conceived, she says, to evoke a sense of home—albeit a rather sumptuous one—where guests can sample lesser-known family favourites typically reserved for special occasions. But just as you’d only trot out the fancy silverware in good company, the complexities of running a family business are often hidden behind the polished veneer of service and menus.
BRINGING ON THE HEAT
She admits conflict is par for the course when it comes to navigating the helm alongside her mother and CEO brother, Tay Yiming. “It was explosive, but we never let up, and it never got to the point where we said, ‘Forget it, I don’t want to talk to you’,” says the 49-year-old of Violet Oon Singapore’s early days.
Her family is outspoken, and constructive debate is valued above bluster, she explains. “Even if voices are raised, we can see that we’re in it for the same reason (a good customer experience), which builds mutual trust.” As an example, if her brother thought it would crimp the flow of service, she would readily reconfigure a restaurant’s layout. “It’s not about my ego or kicking up a big fuss.”
With her subtle discretion and stage-ready composure, Oon’s willowy elder child wears the patina of generational comfort. Yet neither she nor her younger brother are exactly what you’d consider de facto heirs to a ready-made empire.
In fact, by the time Tay returned home to roost after 13 years in Los Angeles, her mother had all but abandoned the notion of firing up the line again as a professional chef. In her 60s by then, Oon had traded the heat of the kitchen for the less febrile realms of food consultancy and public relations.
Growing up, Tay rode shotgun on her mother’s career journey—tagging along as a plus-one on food tastings during her journalism days and later helping her behind the counter in her F&B ventures, including packing cookies for a Violet Oon counter in the basement of Takashimaya Department Store.
Though her culinary expertise provided her with opportunities, the businesses ultimately failed, leaving the siblings to experience both the rewards and the pitfalls of this business. “She opened them all and I saw them fail,” Tay recalls, noting that while something is good, opportunities come fast and furious, but you have to measure them out.
As a result, even though she and her brother quietly envisioned a different playbook, success would be determined by their terms.
A START IN LA LA LAND
There’s a lot to live up to, when your mother has been dubbed the Julia Child of Singapore not least for her colourful backstories. In media, you can scarcely swing a stick without hitting a Violet Oon anecdote. One account involves her hauling live crabs aboard a flight to Chicago while travelling the world as a culinary ambassador; another recalls her interviewing an undressed British Prima Ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn as a rookie reporter.
Yet Tay, who struggled academically due to dyslexia, argues that she was never stifled by the weight of expectations. Though she found her mother “so irritating, as all parents are”, she avers that the multi-hyphenate always gave her the latitude to explore her passions.
“I’m creative, so she said I could be a potter, or anything else I wanted to be. Looking at her, I felt I had the capacity to be the best at anything if I just gave it a shot.”
If her mother was at times carping, it was because she didn’t do things by halves. “She raised us to be disciplined and committed to excellence,” says Tay, who studied industrial economics in the UK.
She later attended the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles where she met her business partner and started a bag line called T Bags. “I went to Sears and bought a sewing machine and all this vintage fabric. Then I taught myself to sew and made 13 bags over the weekend.”
Brimming with joie de vivre at the turn of the century, the young entrepreneur wove through glitzy shopping haunts such as Melrose Avenue and Beverly Hills with a car trunk laden with bags. “It’s so interesting being in a foreign country and meeting people along the way,” she muses. “When you’re young, you do the funniest things. What did I have to lose? At the most, they’d just tell me no.”
In relaunching Violet Oon Singapore at Ion Orchard, Tay is once again thinking globally…She is aware, however, that challenges lie ahead.
Her hustle paid off. The handbag line fanned out into a full-fledged fashion label sold at major department stores such as Barneys and Neiman Marcus. More buzz-worthy were its glitter-dusted covey of celebrity clients, including Gwen Stefani, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton, who was pictured slinking through the noughties in a breezy, boho chic T Bags halter dress.
One T Bags dress even made a cameo in the Sex and the City movie. “I nearly fell off my chair when I saw it on screen,” Tay laughs.
The reality, however, was far less glamorous than the red carpet glow. “I worked in a factory in downtown LA, surrounded by the homeless. For the longest time, I was a one-man show packing boxes, tagging items, and issuing invoices,” she says.
Her path as a startup entrepreneur was pot-holed with tough lessons, just like her mother’s. “What do you do when you launch a production and everything comes out wrong? How do you negotiate with somebody? I was constantly having to level up because I didn’t work for anyone.”
COMING FULL CIRCLE
As those career-defining moments unfolded, her priorities began to shift. Travelling between LA and Singapore and running the business across continents proved untenable after after her third child.
“Who will take care of them? Unlike Beyoncé, I didn’t have an entourage to travel with,” jokes Tay, who has two boys and a girl, all in their teens now. So, she returned to Singapore after selling her share of the company to her business partner. It was here, between lashings of fish head curry at hawker centres and decadent home-cooked meals she helped prepare, that she cultivated her palate and appreciation for Nyonya culture and cuisine.
She was captivated by its nuances, from the subtle distinctions between Teochew and Peranakan popiah to the robust flavours shaped in part by the tradition where men ate first, leaving women to make do with rice and moreish sauces.
Having this restaurant was a matter of preserving traditions, and the family plunged right in without hesitation. “My brother and I had to put everything into starting this, and my mother was so thrilled because she never thought her life’s work would translate into something like this,” reflects Tay.
Over time, the trio’s relationships have evolved. “It’s been amazing working with her as I get to see her as more than just this mother figure,” shares Tay, who describes the family matriarch as being receptive to change. Oon, however, does not hold back on criticism, nor does she expect her children to do so either. “I see her holding herself to the same standards she asks of us. It’s given me a newfound respect for her.”
At home, she is a doting grandmother who indulges the culinary whims of Tay’s younger son. “He wanted to perfect his omu rice at my mum’s house,” Tay says with a laugh. “’Because only Popo (granny) would let me order 50 eggs,’ he said.”
Domestic quirks aside, the sibling dynamic between her and Yiming has also shifted. “I always saw him as my younger brother, someone I wanted to take care of. But as time went on, I began to regard him as my colleague.” Yiming, who is an accountant by training, she says, possesses sharp business acumen and is her sounding board.
Together, the siblings have elevated the image of Peranakan cuisine in Singapore—a feat Tay attributes to the power of a compelling narrative. Each outlet is designed in dialogue with its surroundings. The brasserie-inspired Orchard location, for instance, nods to the area’s cafe culture with dishes like Hainanese pork chops, while the now-defunct satay bar at Clarke Quay featured exposed beams that echoed its former life as a riverside warehouse.
“We want to honour the spaces we’re in because there are so many Singapore food stories that we can tell,” says Tay.
They’ve also weathered headwinds like a pandemic that sounded the death knell for other restaurants and a scuppered business partnership that ended up in court, where Oon won her bid to buy out businessman Manoj Murjani’s 50 percent stake in July 2024. As she sidesteps the issue, she shares how the family has remained true to its north star: “to preserve and celebrate our culture through food.”
In relaunching Violet Oon Singapore at Ion Orchard, Tay is once again thinking globally. Once mothballed due to sourcing constraints, expansion plans have been revived. She is aware, however, that challenges lie ahead, including maintaining quality while scaling up.
“My mother’s earlier businesses are always in the back of our minds because we saw what can happen when you expand too fast and don’t have the correct systems in place. We have had to pace ourselves and set targets,” she says, smiling.
“We want to highlight all this on the global culinary stage and get people to fall in love with Singapore’s food and stories. We will get there.”
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Photography Stefan Khoo
Styling Chia Wei Choong
Hair Sean Ang
Makeup Keith Bryant Lee
Styling assistant Annalisa Lim
Photography assistant Alif
