A day in the life of chef Damian D’Silva of Rempapa: From daily wet market runs to lunch service

It is 7am on a weekday morning and we find ourselves in front of The Marketplace @ 58 in Bedok with famed chef Damian D’Silva.

Leading us into the wet market, the towering man trains his intense gaze on me. “Let me show you the stalls where I normally get my ingredients,” he says.

Best known for being a judge on MasterChef Singapore, the 68-year-old is quite the imposing figure, sporting a clean-shaven head and a stoic expression.

For those unfamiliar, Damian is regarded as one of the key figures behind the resurgence of heritage cuisines in Singapore’s restaurants, when he caught public attention with stints at restaurants such as Folklore.

These days, he runs Rempapa, a popular restaurant at Paya Lebar that serves up an array of heritage dishes from Singapore’s diverse cultures — ranging from Peranakan and Eurasian, to Malay and Hakka!

Our mission this morning: Getting a glimpse into chef Damian’s day.

A morning at the wet market

Despite his stature in the industry, Damian still makes it a point to visit the wet markets personally, every morning.

His day begins at 5am, and he heads out for a strong cup of kopi-o kosong, before he heads into the market.

However, unlike the typical auntie who relishes their long morning excursion into the wet markets, his trips are efficient and snappy, taking 20 minutes, give or take.

The experienced Damian prioritises efficiency due to a hectic schedule, and has concise routes pre-plotted out for every market he visits.

For The Marketplace, where he has been a regular for 30 years, he always makes a left once he enters the market — to visit his regular fishmongers for seafood.

Another right turn — and then a left — brings us to his preferred spot for greens and herbs. He usually visits a butcher here too, but she isn’t open today.

The process is fast: He talks to the vendors for a bit, scans through all the produce and occasionally picks some of them up for a feel.

But he goes through the stalls quickly and without much fuss.

Within fifteen minutes, Damian has everything he needs and is ready to return to Rempapa.

En route to Rempapa

We soon found ourselves squeezed into a car with Damian, cruising down New Upper Changi Road, towards his restaurant.

Although still slightly intimidated by the famously solemn chef, we couldn’t help but pry about the morning’s visit: “Why do you like to go to the wet markets, chef?” 

He replies: “For the surprise of finding a herb or seafood that you haven’t seen in a long time. That’s why I go there everyday, to see if there are surprises.”

The Rempapa chef-owner recounts that he has been going to wet markets since he was a kid, as he’d often tagged along with his grandfather on his ingredient runs.

His paternal grandfather was of Eurasian heritage, but loved to cook dishes from other cultures too — and that inculcated a deep-seated respect for our local cuisine.

“He was one of the best cooks I knew and I was lucky to have Pop (his grandfather) teach me all these things,” Damian says.

Those trips with Grandpa helped foster a judicious eye for fresh ingredients.

He’s happy to impart some of that wisdom to us. 

“To see how fresh your fish is, you have to look at the clearness of the eye and the slime on them. Some people press the fish, but it doesn’t help,” he says.

But visiting the wet markets isn’t just meant to look for special ingredients.

Although he has suppliers for certain items, he prefers to go to the wet market for fresh fish and pork. At the same time, it also helps him find and forge relationships with the vendors who peddle quality goods.

“Different people at the markets can have different budgetary needs, but I believe in finding the best quality for customers,” he adds.

Of course, quality produce eats into his margins. But the seemingly stern man jokes that, if he could start all over again, he would settle for opening “ah beng bar” instead of Rempapa.

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A morning at Rempapa

Hauling bags of fish and veggies out of the car park, Damian insisted on carrying everything himself. 

“This is nothing,” he says.

We quickly find our way out of the basement and through the side entrance of Rempapa, where the words “welcome home” are splashed onto the door.

With a tap of his key card, Damian swings the door open and proceeds to transfer the morning’s wet market haul onto the empty kitchen countertops.

There’s still some time before lunch service begins so Damian invites us to relax in Rempapa’s main dining room, where we settled in for a chat.

On his love for old-school market trips, he adds: “Singaporeans think we have no seasons, but there is, actually. For example, you are more likely to find certain herbs or fish during the monsoon season.”

To him, it’s not really the younger generation’s fault for not knowing about these things, as there’s an underlying factor: A lack of education.

While he was lucky to have his grandfather as his mentor, some people are less fortunate.

That need for education is the impetus behind Rempapa’s persistence in representing heritage dishes from as many of our local cultures as possible. 

Damian explains that this ethos came about when he first returned from Europe — he originally enjoyed cooking Western-style cuisine when back in Singapore, but eventually realised it didn’t make his soul happy.

To him, it’s all about educating Singaporeans on our local flavours, as these dishes play a crucial role in preserving our culture and identity — a resistance against the pressures of modernity that have slowly eroded these away.

“We can’t forget our heritage. It’s very important. We lose our soul. We lose how we are,” he emphasises.

Service at Rempapa

As lunch service approaches, Damian turns up the heat in the kitchen and whips up a few dishes for us.

He first starts with the babi pongteh (S$30), a staple Peranakan dish, by leaving chunks of pork to simmer in a pool of walnut-brown sauce.

Damian then plops another pot onto the burner right beside, where he slowly stirs up a mound of amber-hued curry — this was Rempapa’s take on singgang (S$26), an Eurasian classic.

Ever the skilled multitasker, the seasoned chef then leaves the stove to do its magic before taking out a piece of battered pork and throwing it into the deep fryer.

He then goes back to the stove, gives a few more good stirs, tastes and brings them over to the counter to plate, carefully adorning them with garnish.

Not long after, he fishes the pork out of the deep fryer, gives it a good shake and lets the oil drip off, before cutting it up and plating it with chunks of fermented tomatoes.

After everything is in order, Damian brings the plates out and sets them onto a table. We dive in with anticipation and the first bite of Rempapa’s Hakka fried pork (S$20) was exceedingly shiok.

It’s tender with a light crunch and the chilli’s bright spice sits nicely over the pork’s twangy marinade. But the key is to chase bites quickly with the umami fermented tomatoes — an insanely good complement.

Then, follow up with the singgang, with the paste thoroughly mixed into a mouthful of rice, for an even more pleasant bite. 

Rempah fragrance comes rushing out, while the lumpy and luscious textures render it a great companion for rice — almost a bit like a fish otah paste.

Interestingly, Rempapa uses a different fish in its take on the Eurasian dish. Damian explains: “Singgang usually uses deboned wolf herring, but it’s a seasonal fish, so we use spotted Spanish mackerel instead.”

Then we finish with the babi pongteh, a kind of pork belly stew cooked with fermented bean paste. Succulent pork, juicy mushrooms and the most addictively umami sauce? This is as comforting as it gets.

As we wrap up our meal and shoot, Damian also readies to leave — he has other obligations for the day and errands to run that aren’t related to cooking.

He explains: “Marketing is number one. You need people to know you. As much as you think people know me, maybe only a few people in a single MRT train would recognise me.” 

“That’s not enough. You need to walk into an MRT and they go: ‘Eh, that’s that chef!’, then they will come to your restaurant,” he adds, cheekily.

And that’s a good representation of Damian D’Silva. As much as he exudes a killer aura, the Rempapa chef-owner is not a stern man stuck in his ways. 

Perhaps, more than anything, he is just a man with a deep knowledge of food and great passion for heritage cuisine — and he would like all Singaporeans to share that love for our culture, as he does.

Rempapa is on GrabFood 5-Star Eats

Rempapa is one of many stellar stores on GrabFood 5-Star Eats — a newly launched collection on the food delivery app — which curates the best eats in Singapore, based on community reviews and the opinions of establishments such as the Michelin Guide and HungryGoWhere!

Check out GrabFood 5-Star Eats for all the best eats in Singapore that can be conveniently delivered to your doorstep!

This article was written in partnership with GrabFood.

Find out more about the 5-Star eats collection and check out how restaurants such as Man Man Unagi and Hajime Tonkotsu & Ramen have made their mark on our local food scene.

Rempapa is on the GrabFood delivery service and offers free delivery (up to S$3 off) with GrabUnlimited. 

Enjoy up to 50% off when you dine with GrabFood Dine Out.

You can also book a ride to Rempapa to have a taste of Chef Damian D’Silva’s heartfelt heritage cooking!