Ma Cuisinette’s Alain Perez serves affordable French and Italian comfort food in Orchard from S$8

French cuisine has a reputation for being many things — elegant, technique-driven and indulgent — but affordable probably isn’t the first word that comes to mind.

At Ma Cuisinette, however, you can tuck into a plate of chicken Provencal for $9, mussels in cream for S$12.90, or its latest Italian additions, such as a plate of creamy chicken ham carbonara for just S$9.

The family-run concept is headed by 35-year-old Frenchman Alain Perez. Its first stall in Seletar opened in June 2025, followed by a Chinatown outlet four months later. The third stall at Far East Plaza is the latest addition, having launched in May. All three stalls are located within Picnic Food Hall food courts.  

For those working or shopping around Orchard, this means its French comfort food is now considerably easier to access. 

I’ve visited Ma Cuisinette’s Seletar stall at Greenwich V multiple times, with its mussels in cream and chicken Provencal becoming particular favourites. So when I heard about the Far East Plaza opening — and the dishes joining the menu — I was excited to finally sit down with the stall’s laid-back owner.

As I quickly discovered, Alain’s journey to selling French food in Singapore was hardly a conventional one.

Alain’s F&B journey

Despite growing up in France and attending hospitality school Lycee Hotelier de Toulouse, Alain wasn’t initially drawn to a career in F&B.

His two-year hospitality course exposed him to everything, from reception and housekeeping to cooking and waiting tables. But after graduating, he took an entirely different route: aircraft maintenance.

The hands-on job suited him. Alain spent around six years as an aircraft technician and enjoyed the work, which also gave him opportunities to travel.

What eventually brought him to Singapore wasn’t culinary ambition, but family. “I came to Singapore in 2021 to catch up with my dad and make up for lost time,” he say.

Born to a French father and Singaporean mother, Alain grew up in France, while his father, Laurent Perez, 60, had a career as a chef and remained Asia-based. Raised largely by his grandparents, he saw his father only intermittently growing up.

He initially intended to remain here for just two years, helping Laurent at his previous restaurant before eventually moving back to France. Life had other plans, and Alain ended up marrying a Singaporean wife. In July, he also welcomed a baby boy into the family.

Why start Ma Cuisinette?

Before Ma Cuisinette took its current form, Laurent ran a now-defunct restaurant (whose name Alain declined to share) in Seletar Aerospace Park.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the restaurant benefited from Singaporeans looking for new places to explore locally. But when borders reopened and travel resumed, Alain says business noticeably declined.

Running a full-service restaurant also meant dealing with higher rent and greater manpower requirements. Alain began pushing for a leaner model, thus leading to the birth of Ma Cuisinette. 

The food court stall format offered cheaper rent, fewer manpower requirements and a simpler menu — savings that help Ma Cuisinette keep its prices comparatively low.

That affordability matters when the dishes involve ingredients such as mussels and clams.Alain points out that a mussel dish, which might cost S$30 to S$40 at a restaurant, can be sold at a fraction of that price at Ma Cuisinette. 

Yet he is candid about the trade-off. Margins are slim, and expensive ingredients have occasionally forced dishes off the menu. “We try to order affordable ingredients,” Alain says. “But sometimes, we have a low margin to play with, as both mussels and clams are expensive.” 

The stall’s former lamb dish, for example, was eventually discontinued when the numbers stopped making sense, despite it being popular with the customers.

Working with family

Ma Cuisinette is as much a family business as it is a food business, though Alain is refreshingly unsentimental about what working with his father is actually like.

“Spending time with him is good, but working with him has its ups and downs,” he laughs.

At work, Alain says he treats his father as a boss rather than a parent — though being family does make disagreements rather more straightforward. “There are some things that you are more comfortable telling your father than a regular boss,” he admits. 

Their strengths are also different. Alain describes himself as a “manual kind of guy”, while his father’s decades in F&B have made him stronger in areas such as management, restaurant planning and cooking.

There is now another generation in the picture, too, with the recent birth of Alain’s son. He tells us that his father had been waiting years to become a grandfather, which Laurent calls his “achievement of a lifetime”.

Menu and new additions

Ma Cuisinette’s cooking draws broadly from southeastern France, particularly Marseille and the larger Provence region where Alain’s father grew up.

But the menu is increasingly branching out. At Far East Plaza, diners will find pastas alongside its existing French dishes and pizzas. Alain decided to introduce the Italian additions because he wanted to offer familiar dishes that customers already enjoy, while giving the menu more variety.

The gnocchi, however, has a more personal origin. “Gnocchi was a dish that my grandmother used to make for me when I was living  in France,” Alain recalls.

His grandmother’s version was a simple combination of ham, cheese and gnocchi. Alain and his father had discussed how they could create their own version, initially introducing it as a special. Customers liked it enough that they kept bringing it back.

Ma Cuisinette’s baked version is more elaborate, combining gnocchi with slow-cooked chicken, broth and vegetables before being topped with grated cheese and finished in the oven. Customers can also opt for the seafood gnocchi, which comes with mussels, clams, and prawns. 

Customer preferences also increasingly shape the menu. At Far East Plaza, pizza and pasta have emerged as the strongest sellers, with carbonara leading the pastas. 

I was surprised by this, considering how much I enjoyed the French dishes, such as its chicken Provencal.

“A lot of people tend to go to what they know,” Alain observes, explaining that even if diners are unfamiliar with the French options at Ma Cuisinette, they already know what to expect from carbonara.

And the most popular pizza? Hawaiian, which Alain jokingly calls “Singapore’s national pizza” because of how much people enjoy it. 

To round off the menu, there are also salads such as the classic (S$8), chicken (S$9), mozzarella (S$9.90) and surf and turf (S$10). 

What we tried

The seafood tomato sauce pasta (S$9.90) is straightforward but satisfying, with a tangy tomato sauce coating the pasta, along with mussels and clams. It doesn’t try to be overly complicated — it fits Alain’s description of his pastas as “regular pasta done nicely”. 

At under S$10, it’s an easy choice for a weekday lunch in Orchard. 

I also savoured the creamy chicken ham carbonara pasta (S$9). It’s rich and comforting without feeling excessively heavy, and easy to understand why carbonara has become the most popular pasta here. 

The baked chicken gnocchi (S$11.90) was my favourite dish. Pillowy gnocchi, chicken, carrots and mushroom arrive under a layer of baked cheese, making this the sort of dish you’ll want when you’re properly hungry. While Alain tells us that the portion is for one person, it’s heavy and generous enough to feed two people. 

For something crowd-pleasing, there’s the Hawaiian pizza (S$14.90). The crust is thin and lightly crisp around the edges, while the tomato sauce balances the mozzarella and sweet pineapple well. 

Besides the new additions, the mussels in cream (S$12.90) was a standout. Alain tells us that the onions are caramelised before the mussels hit a hot pan, followed by water, seasoning and cream. 

Unlike most restaurant versions, which uses wine for deglazing, the stall does without it to make the dish accessible to more diners. The resulting sauce is rich, savoury and deeply infused with the natural brininess of the mussels. 

We didn’t have the chicken Provencal (S$9) on this visit, but having eaten it previously at the Seletar stall, I highly recommend giving it a go. The comforting chicken dish is enveloped in a tomato-forward sauce, giving diners a sense of the southeastern French cooking at the heart of the concept.

What comes next

As for whether Alain wants to expand Ma Cuisinette with more stalls, he is not ruling it out, but doesn’t want to rush into it. “Quality is the most important right now, rather than the number of outlets,” he says.

Alain says that if pizzas and pastas continue outperforming other dishes, Ma Cuisinette may lean further into those categories. That doesn’t mean its French identity is disappearing, though.

He says staples such as its mussels and chicken Provencal are likely to stay.  However, Alain isn’t concerned that Italian additions would dilute the French aspect of his brand, nor does he insist diners approach it with preconceived ideas about authenticity.

“At the end of the day, it’s about making good food that people enjoy,” he says. 

We found that straightforward approach reflected in the food. The dishes are not trying to imitate fine-dining French cuisine or overwhelm diners with elaborate techniques. Instead, they offer familiar, hearty flavours at prices that incentivise patrons to order more than one dish.

And now that the stall has arrived in the middle of Orchard Road, it’s easier than ever to enjoy French and Italian classics made well. 

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