COOKING WITH CONVICTION: Se Teo (centre) is the only Singaporean to have trained at Jamie Oliver's restaurant in London. -- ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO

The restaurant's head chef, Benny Se Teo, who is the only Singaporean to have trained at Fifteen's London kitchen, has reworked favourites at the latter to offer pasta and baked rice dishes that are both wallet-friendly and suited to local tastebuds.

The self-taught cook landed a month-long apprenticeship last April through a chat he had with Fifteen's director, Liam Black, via the restaurant's online forum.

'Liam gave me the opportunity because he was impressed by my interest in Fifteen's social mission of helping juvenile delinquents re-integrate into society by offering them a culinary skill,' says Se Teo, a former drug addict who was in and out of prison between 1980 and 1993.

He was then the executive chef of now-defunct steamboat restaurant Goshen, a social enterprise started by HighPoint halfway house in 2005 to provide jobs for ex-offenders.

His 54-seat restaurant in Eastpoint Mall is similarly committed to helping ex-offenders and delinquents turn over a new leaf by carving a career in the food business. One of the shop's eight-member crew is an ex-offender.

The five-week-old restaurant's mission is likewise reflected in its name.

Se Teo says the number '18' is the monicker of an active local gang.

'I want delinquents to know that life offers many alternative paths. You don't have to identify as a gangster, you can be a chef.'

That said, the 47-year-old entrepreneur, whose business is for profit, hopes that the restaurant will be known for its food rather than its support for the rehabilitation of ex-offenders.

'Customers will return only if the food is good and not because they empathise with our social cause.'

Se Teo, however, has little to worry about.

Business at the restaurant has been so brisk that four offers from private investors looking to set up joint-venture branches have poured in.

And while he is open to the possibility of training 18 chefs to start their own restaurants, he cautions about the difficulty of setting up an eatery.

His sentiment is shared by food business development manager Shireen Khoo, 35, who said the high start-up capital for opening a food stall, often $100,000 and above, is no small sum for many ex-offenders.

Chua Chiew Chuan, 50, an ex-offender who was charged with violently causing grievous hurt in 1989, had to scrape together his and his wife's savings to open a Western food stall at a coffee shop in Serangoon North in 2005.

Late last year, the Industrial and Services Co-operation Society, which works to re-integrate ex-offenders into society, started a subsidiary firm called I.M. BOSS (F&B) that helps ex-offenders get funding to open food franchises.

Already, one such business, run by four ex-offenders has been operating for a month.

Iscos plans to help open 10 such food franchises in the next 12 to 18 months.

For a food venture to thrive, its owners must also know how to manage a business, said Khoo.

Chua, who had never held a proper job till he left prison in 1990, relied on his wife's experience as a hawker when they started the store.

Having overcome the typical obstacles of setting up a food business though, his stall is doing well enough to allow him to upgrade from a mini van to a Proton Gen-2 recently.

'I want delinquents to know that life offers many alternative paths. You don't have to identify as a gangster, you can be a chef.'
Benny Se Teo, head chef of Eighteen Chefs