Real fire
Every dish meets wood fire. It is slower and harder, and it tastes better.
Home / Our Story
Since the first fire
Fire, olive oil and good company
A small kitchen on Keong Saik Road built around one idea: cook the Mediterranean way, over real wood, and set the table for sharing.
The story
From a Cretan village to a Tanjong Pagar shophouse
Ember & Olive began at a family table in Chania, where Sunday lunch meant lamb buried in the embers of a village oven and bread torn by hand. Years later, cooking in kitchens from Athens to Melbourne, our chef kept coming back to that taste of smoke.
In Singapore he met Mei Lin Tan, a hospitality lead who grew up three streets from Keong Saik. Together they found a 1920s shophouse with high ceilings and a back courtyard just big enough for an oven. They opened with twelve dishes, one wine list and no gas line.
Today the menu is longer, but the rule is the same: if it doesn't touch the fire, it doesn't leave the kitchen.
Chef profile
Nikos Andreou
Chef and co-founder. Trained in Athens, then spent eight years cooking over live fire in Melbourne before moving to Singapore. Nikos runs the pass every night and still lights the oven himself every morning.
“Fire is honest. It tells you when you're rushing. Our job is to listen to it, and to buy ingredients worth that patience.”
- Specialises in ember cooking, open-fire grilling and wood-oven baking
- Works directly with growers in Kranji and Lim Chu Kang for herbs and greens
- Builds the wine list with small producers from Crete, Santorini and Sicily
The wood-fired oven
How a day at the oven works
Our dome oven is hand-built from refractory clay and burns seasoned oak and fruitwood. No gas, no shortcuts — just four stages of heat we use from morning to midnight.
Light & build
At 11:00 the fire is lit and fed for two hours until the dome turns white — the sign the clay is fully saturated with heat.
Up to 480°CBlister
At full heat, flatbreads bake in 90 seconds and vegetables char in minutes. The flame rolls across the roof of the oven.
420 – 450°CRoast
As the fire settles, whole fish, chicken and octopus roast in the retained heat, picking up gentle smoke.
250 – 320°CEmber
After service, lamb shoulders go into the cooling embers overnight. Desserts bake in the falling heat for the next day.
Under 150°C
What we stand for
Our values
Close to source
Local farms for greens and herbs, responsibly sourced fish, and olive oil from producers we know by name.
Made to share
Plates come to the middle of the table. Dinner should be a conversation, not a sequence.
Waste less
Oak ash goes back to our farm partners, and the oven's leftover heat cooks tomorrow's bread.
Come hungry
There's a seat by the fire for you
Lunch and dinner Tuesday to Sunday on Keong Saik Road, five minutes from Outram Park MRT.