JOURNE
Pronounced, /ʒuːrn/, is a creative food space where cooking is explored and developed.
Founded by chefs Lih and Ethel, Journe is built on the belief that food is not defined by borders, but by experience, where flavours, cultures, and techniques intersect to create something deeply personal and ever evolving. Currently, Journe operates as an intimate private dining experience hosted in their home, serving up to 8 guests.
Our Story
Lih and Ethel met at the Culinary Institute of America (Singapore) before continuing their training in San Francisco, where they worked in Michelin starred kitchens and grew into leadership roles.
Lih, a former national archer, entered the culinary world in 2014 and has worked across Singapore and San Francisco, including at O’ by Claude Le Tohic. He later served as chef to the United States Ambassador to Singapore from 2022 to 2025.
Ethel began her career in nursing before transitioning into pastry, later founding Little Favors in 2015. She went on to become Pastry Sous Chef at Quince, where her work developed a strong connection to seasonality and flavour.
Their time in California shaped a deep respect for ingredient sourcing, seasonality, and working closely with producers. This perspective continues to define their cooking, where flavour, texture, and quality are guided by freshness and origin.
Together, they were part of the opening team of Ittoryu Gozu in Singapore, where they built both the savoury and pastry programmes around live fire cooking, wagyu, and seasonal produce. Working closely with sourcing and evolving menus, they developed a style that is intuitive, expressive, and grounded in the ingredient.
At Journe, cooking begins with the ingredient.
They draw out the full, and at times unexpected, expression of each ingredient, its flavour, texture, and character, through precise technique and intuitive pairings. Their approach is guided not by tradition alone, but by a clear sense of balance and meaning, often bridging cultures in unexpected ways.
Returning to Singapore, they began to question what “seasonality” and “Singaporean cuisine” truly means in a place shaped by movement and migration.
Singapore has no single culinary identity – and that becomes its strength, shaping a way of cooking that intersects cultures, flavours, and memory.
Journe reflects this complexity, through a perspective shaped by their time abroad, their heritage and diverse food cultures around them.
Rather than define Singaporean food, they explore it, creating dishes that feel both familiar and new, grounded yet evolving.
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