Violet Oon has long been described as the doyenne of Singapore’s heritage food and, more recently, a national treasure. The indomitable 76-year-old has spent decades documenting, cooking and championing Singapore’s culinary heritage, making her something of a living repository of our nation’s social history.
Her own life is full of film-worthy turns. As a young child, she spent a year and a half in the UK, which gave her a new appreciation for Singaporean food. “When I came back… it was like a reunion with a lover,” she said of missing the food of home in an interview in 2019. She nursed early ambitions of becoming an opera singer but decided not to pursue it because “I realised I would never be the best in the world.”
She stood on the picket line at the 1971 Straits Times strike, just months after she began working as a journalist – a moment immortalised in a photograph that now hangs on the wall of her restaurant in Ion Orchard. She has moved in social circles that would later inspire the larger-than-life characters in Crazy Rich Asians. “(The movie) is based on true stories! I actually know someone who went and bought the hotel,” she trilled, referring to the opening scene where Michelle Yeoh’s character buys the London hotel that refused her family service.
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