Li Guang Han

Chef-Owner, Restaurant Labyrinth

Singapore

Labyrinth was born out of Chef-Owner LG Han’s passion for cooking and his creative energy that challenges common perceptions, both in taste and visuals. 


Born to 3 generations of restaurateurs and F&B operators, food was never far from Han’s mind. So having gained his financial degree from the London School of Economics and working for 3 years as a corporate banker in Singapore, he decided to quit and pursue his first love – food. For insight and ideas, he dined at some of the world’s greatest establishments, including The Fat Duck and Gordon Ramsay's Maze in the UK, Metis in Bali, and Bo Innovation in Hong Kong. More importantly, he worked with internationally renowned chefs including Mauro Colagreco (Mirazur, France), Tom Kerridge (The Hand & Flowers, UK) and Roberto Galetti (Garibaldi, Singapore), achieving solid training in Asian, Modern French and Italian cuisine. The long arduous hours in the kitchen also gave Chef Han a deft mastery of technique, and a resolute passion for the profession.

The restaurant he founded in 2014, Labyrinth, and the cuisine he pioneered, Neo-Singapore or Neo-Sin, can be defined as an open-box culinary think tank not limiting creativity and innovation to purely an eastern or western cuisine in itself, yet drawing its roots from Chef Han’s memories of growing up in Singapore in the 1980s and 1990s. A firm believer in freshness of ingredient, he wakes up early every morning to personally select his meats from trusted pork and chicken sellers in the very wet market that his grandmother patronised for the last 3 decades.

His philosophy can be crystallized in 4 essential elements: technical precision, fresh sustainable produce, culture and emotions. By reinterpreting and reconstructing classic international and local creations familiar to the modern Singaporean, Chef Han has carved a unique culinary identity all his own, and redefined Singapore cuisine as a melting pot of influences from all around the world.