AUGUST MEN OF TOMORROW

It seemed like yesterday when Bai Jiawei was announced as the youngest principal bartender at Employees Only. His creativity behind the counter was part of the reason why Employees Only became such an established name. But it soon became clear that Jiawei needed to strike out on his own, to establish his own brands, where his vision for cocktails and the bar experience can take root. In 2021, he teamed up with Jerrold Khoo to open Stay Gold Flamingo, the first platform on which he exercised his creativity as a bartender. And, what’s his favourite cocktail, you ask? "My favourite cocktail right now is the whisky highball. It’s simple, but the fewer ingredients, the harder it is to perfect it”, he obliges.

My favourite cocktail right now is the whisky highball. It’s simple, but the fewer ingredients, the harder it is to perfect it.

Phutsachi Pipat aka Koo has made some of the most memorable video content in recent years. The ‘Win Leow’ Health Promotion Board series of ads? That’s Koo. The Mediacorp thriller The Intruder? Koo. Those really cool, action-packed (and one delightfully surreal Alice In Wonderland-inspired) Central Narcotics Bureau videos? Also Koo.   When we spoke to him about his approach to filmmaking, he says, “It’s not a good film if only you’re happy. Your partner, or audience, must be satisfied too.” 

It’s not a good film if only you’re happy. Your partner, or audience, must be satisfied too.

“I wish I have more than 24 hours each day, or for there to be multiple me’s to help me do everything,” Furqan often jokes. Some element of truth is in it, for sure, “There are just so many things to do, yet so little time, but I love it.” To walk in Furqan Saini’s shoes is a high call to most, if not all. Being both the founder and creative director of his own creative agency, Major Minor, it is up to him to conceptualise ideas for his clients and then bring said concepts to life, all while finding the sweet spot between communicating the key messages in each campaign and expressing his artistic flair.

I wish I have more than 24 hours each day, or for there to be multiple me’s to help me do everything.

If life were a video game, Benjamin Aryanto would dislike playing it on the ‘Easy’ setting. The Founder of creative agency Grimm & Company started his agency in 2020, smack dab at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when some agencies were closing as life came to a standstill. Four years on, Grimm & Company has found some success. It isn’t quite in the big leagues yet, but they’ve been making waves – especially in the food and lifestyle space.   When asked for the secret to his success, Benjamin says, “Dare to be the odd one out in a sea of ordinaries. It’s often the unconventional ideas that rewrite the rules of the game.”

Dare to be the odd one out in a sea of ordinaries. It’s often the unconventional ideas that rewrite the rules of the game.

How do we get a mercantile-leaning, brand-conscious society like ours to care about local literature? Adam Tie found an absurdly simple, but never executed solution: you get to your readers through the brands they love. When we asked if he received criticism from his family or the business community for starting The Novel Encounter, Adam replies, “I’m fortunate that I haven’t encountered (pun intended) much backlash to what I do. Of course, I get the occasional, ‘Eh so you’re like a human chat GPT ah?’ but nothing insulting thrown.” He adds, “As modern-day souls, we should be comfortable about where our passions & comforts lie – wherever they may be.”

As modern-day souls, we should be comfortable about where our passions & comforts lie – wherever they may be.

When Shahrul got his first ever job at 16 as a waiter at famed steakhouse Lawry’s The Prime Rib, he was a quick learner. “I learnt quite early into the job what working life is really like, and the amount of hard work that’s needed to climb the ladder. I learnt about working smart, too. We all have limited time or resources. It’s important to use them in an intelligent, efficient manner.” He’s since worked at some of the most popular eateries in Singapore, such as Nando’s, Super Loco, and Altro Zafferano but, through these early years in the industry, the thing that best defined Shahrul was his humility, and a willingness to learn. He then made the step up to Head of F&B at Garcha Group, the luxury boutique hotels company behind gems such as Duxton Reserve, Maxwell Reserve, and Serangoon House.

You cannot go into every room thinking you’re the biggest person there, that you know everything. Then there’s no space for you to learn something new.

Congyu left school to study music in Paris half his life ago at the age of 16 — without the approval or support of his parents or those around him. It helped that he received a scholarship to study at the prestigious Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris. But what his friends and family thought was a pipe dream turned into a breathtaking musical career. Congyu has since performed at some of the most prestigious classical music festivals, including the Ernen Music Festival (Switzerland), the Geza Anda Piano Festival (Berlin), the International Isang Yun Academy (Paris), International Hammer Klavier Piano Series (Barcelona), and the Algarve Music Series (Faro). He’s known for delivering stunning performances of extremely demanding repertoire, which includes 30 piano concertos, as well as the complete solo piano oeuvre of Chopin and Poulenc.

I think life is too short to live with regret. I pick my repertoire very carefully, and I tend to choose pieces that are close to my heart. In the traditional piano festivals, I usually choose a more romantic program — Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Ravel. For private concerts, I choose a more relatable program — Gerhswin, Debussy and modern arrangements of famous tunes.

As a totality of his accomplishments and bona fides, Jay’s résumé bears some impressive highlights. Learning the ropes at a string of legendary bars including Brass Monkey Nottingham, the Worship Street Whistling Shop in London, and Baxter Inn, The Lobo, and Eau de Vie in Australia, Jay has literally and figurative crossed the world, sampling its multitudinous flavours and inflecting their revelations with his own uniquely explorative approach. When he lighted in Singapore as Monkey Shoulder’s Brand Ambassador to Southeast Asia, he channeled that wisdom into exquisite concoctions at some of the most exciting sanctums for savvy seekers of upper-echelon experiences especially at night.His creative restlessness led to him emerging as the CEO and Director of the Sago House Group, under whose umbrella rests the Sago House (which ranked No.32 in The World’s 50 Best Bars 2023 and No.10 in Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2023, and where the drinks menu changes weekly) and Low Tide (a three-storey multi-concept edifice that is the brightest-burning beacon on Club Street) – and resigning from it in the last days of 2023. To the shock that greeted his departure, Jay flashed a devilish smile and announced that he’d be opening his own concept. At the 14-seater cocktail bar and restaurant Idle Hands, Jay is the lone mixologist, chef and (insert vocation here).

“Teng bong,” Kevin says as he stepped into the set, greeting everyone with a smile. It is a greeting in the dying language of Kristang, which Kevin is actively revitalising and preserving in his mission with the initiative Kodrah Kristang (Awaken Kristang). Under his leadership, Kodrah Kristang has made significant strides in its ambitious 30-year revitalisation initiative for the language in Singapore. They’ve crafted a structured Kristang curriculum, delivered through a 160-hour series of modules at venues like Cairnhill Community Club, and spearheaded Singapore’s inaugural Kristang Language Festival in 2017. In 2018, they created an English-Kristang board game and an online dictionary. Through these efforts, Kevin has become a symbol to the Kristang community.

Pra yo sa kung strela Dah mus bai buskah ngua bista di mar For my voice and my star Let us seek a glimpse of the sea.

Underwater photographer Toh Xing Jie first received his open water diving license in 2015, but it took him close to seven years before he even dared to start shooting underwater. He then delved deep into the training he undertook in order to fully prepare himself to be an underwater diver. Taking a rather unconventional route, he pivoted his research into diving, zeroing in on cave divers and how they dive. With that, he started on a cave diving introduction course in late 2021, emerging with his own unique style of diving for his underwater photography career.

Cave diving is the most dangerous form of diving, so if I can master it, that will mean I can be the most confident when I am deep in the sea.

Foundations, literal and figurative, are inextricable from Feroze, the man, the artist, the musician, the entrepreneur and the pioneer. His stacked resume is a glimmering testimonial to the possibilities that can be birthed when a self-starter’s vision is as fully and expertly realised as his commitment to actualising it. When your creative urge is as rich as your artistic eye and when you have an endless reserve of blood, sweat and tears, you have a Feroze McLeod, whose empire includes tattooing, menswear and surf culture institutions: Bada Bink Tattoo Firm, Pharaohs Horses and Maison Meru.

The three words in my brand philosophy are: Patience, Integrity and Respect. They are also the three core values I apply when I'm tattooing.

Slickly tattooed and put together, Joseph cannot help but be cool, in the best possible sense of the term. But his mastery over how he presents himself is a reflection of his thorough commitment to fulfilling his sense of purpose. As the second-generation owner and Chief Executive Officer of powerhouse leather goods House Tocco Toscano, and the one responsible for its seven-figure worth, his business philosophy is inextricable from his life philosophy. Inspired by what his father James Lor accomplished with Tocco Toscano, he co-founded his own label in the late 2010s. That brainchild, Faire Collective, grossed more than a million dollars in its first year of operation.

I want to build something that lasts long after I pass on.

The Senior Community Developer at Ubisoft Singapore has spent over a decade in the gaming industry working closely with gamers and gaming content creators, starting as a Community Manager at Frogster (known for their 2009 hit Runes of Magic) in Berlin. “A year after joining Frogstar, I moved back to France to work for Wargaming in Paris and that’s where things really got serious for me.” He explains: “At Wargaming, I spearheaded a programme to better collaborate with our community leaders and content creators, to bridge the gap between Devs (game developers) and the gaming community.” Alexis spent six years in Wargaming, working his way up to Community Team Lead. When an opportunity came from gaming giants Ubisoft to lead the Community Development team in Singapore, Alexis jumped at it.

This is something I always put a lot of my efforts and focus on — identifying leaders within the community and bringing them closer to the Devs, so their voices could be heard and games can be improved based on direct player feedback.

To dine in Aniba is to treat yourself to the pleasure of savouring. If all this is sounding superlative, it is because the Aniba experience, as a totality, is a superlative one. Presiding as he does over the kitchen, Chef Anas ensures that every plate that comes from it is, as he says, “100% — always”. That night, I tasted wisdom that would endure every time I’d cross the threshold into Aniba’s sensual embrace: the flavours one experiences at Aniba are unique to Aniba only — in the best, most singular sense. In the journalism and marketing of restaurants and food, the idea of being taken/going on a ‘journey’ recurs too often. At Aniba, though, I can personally guarantee that Chef Anas welcomes the diner to a veritable gastronomic adventure. Being a man of taste, his art mirrors his life.

I love getting out of my comfort zone and meeting people, seeing how they live and learning about their culture and their food. I love making people happy.

C.R. (Chun Rong) is an A-star player when it comes to the food photography game. Amidst his rustic cinematic flares and artistically directed styles, C.R. has amassed a following of foodies seeking their next to-go spot. Not just that, his extensive portfolio has caught the attention of many brands globally, from media outlets such as Straits Times and CNN Travel to the big clients of Google and Guinness. “I started my passion in food photography from cooking while I was running a recipe blog” he shares.

As a perfectionist, I wanted to do justice to my culinary creations, which led me to teach myself food photography. It came with a lot of self-experimentation and practice. After eight years in the running, I decided to start my very own boutique agency — Chun Tsubaki, a creative commune that gathers like-minded creatives with a passion for branding, design, and photography.