When Kiss My Pans and Agak Agak closed in September, Toronto lost two of its few spots for Singaporean food. The sister restaurants had built a loyal following for dishes like kaya toast, laksa and nasi lemak, food that’s still surprisingly hard to find around the city.
In a farewell post on Instagram, owners Jeanne Chow and David Burga were frank about why they were calling it quits. The couple moved back to Toronto from Singapore six years ago and started their business without any restaurant experience, turning a small cheese shop into two restaurants — Kiss My Pans and Agak Agak. But a loyal customer base wasn’t enough to offset the cost of running two sit-down spots, with rent and operating expenses continuing to climb.
“The truth is it takes so much more than just knowing how to cook to survive in this business,” Chow wrote.
The couple have now decided they are giving it another shot, just with a very different setup.
Their new project, Kiss the Beast, is taking over their former space at 713 College St. in Little Italy. Instead of bringing back the sprawling menus and dining rooms, they’re keeping things simple with takeout and catering, built around one dish: Hainanese chicken rice.
Hainanese chicken rice is a Singapore favourite, made with tender poached chicken, rice cooked in chicken fat and ginger, and served with chilli sauce and dark soy.
The idea is to focus on what they do best without the costs that made the previous business so difficult to sustain. After building a following across two restaurants, Chow and Burga are betting that a smaller operation centred on one Singaporean classic can work where the bigger model didn’t.
There’s no opening date yet, but updates are being shared on Instagram at @kissthebeastcanada