Opening and keeping a restaurant afloat is an endeavour riddled with all sorts of challenges.

Other than shelling out your life savings, slaving in the kitchen to perfect recipes and dishes, hiring, marketing, sourcing for ingredients and finding the right location (just to name a few), sometimes it takes a certain kind of luck to even make it at all — not to mention sacrificing relationships and loved ones.

But there's one guy who managed.

Meet Malcolm Lee.

He is the chef-owner of the acclaimed Candlenut restaurant, which serves up authentic Peranakan dishes with a modern twist. Take a look at some of their pretty dishes:

This is steamed curry of cod fillet & tiger prawns & fresh herbs —

And this is chilled glass vermicelli with wild abalone and Cincalok dressing:

In general, their dishes are priced between $12 and $36, on the slightly pricier side, but not bad for a gourmet Peranakan place, we think.

Anyway, Lee's restaurant was among those awarded one Michelin star, along the likes of hawker stalls Hong Kong Soya Sauce Noodle and Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle.

We now know Lee's story, courtesy of a pretty moving video posted to the Singapore Michelin Guide's official Facebook page, aptly titled The Struggles and Sacrifices of Running a Michelin-Starred Kitchen: Malcolm Lee of Candlenut.

It begins with Lee's early days as a chef. He was long inspired by French and modern European cooking, but he decided to go back to his Peranakan roots — because, after all, what can replace Beef Rendang, curries and kueh pie tee right?

He set himself on a quest to share his love for Peranakan food, armed with the knowledge of a third-generation chef, and a very homely team of himself, his mother and three retired housewives.

And of course, it was tough to say the least: Lee was barely scraping by to make ends meet. There were nights where he and his mother slept in the restaurant to maximise their rest time.

These tough times made him want to give up on the restaurant on countless occasions — you can't blame the guy when he had to deal with overcoming his split with his ex-girlfriend, who help set up the restaurant with him.

"There were really many times that I told myself I wanted to give up. There were so many times, you know, sometimes even up til today. A lot of things were sacrificed to reach today. Even with my family, friends and my relationship as well. Every single thing has been affected, it has all taken a second priority in life and I think that's something that I quite regret at this point."

Lee teared up talking about her, too :(

Nonetheless, the Michelin nod has pushed him to keep going in his pursuit of fine Peranakan cuisine, and now his toil and pain is seeing him move Candlenut to a larger location on Dempsey Hill — home to many classy food joints, and also a dream "home" for Lee.

They opened on November 1 — here are the details:

Block 17A Dempsey Road

249676 Singapore

Tel: 1800 304 2288

Opening hours : 12:00 - 14:30, 18:00 - 21:00

Here's a Mothership.sg salute to your grit, Malcolm — thank you for your passion, perseverance and invaluable contribution to our world-renowned food culture :)

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