Bricolage Wants You to Rethink What Food Is Worth

At The Arts House, a different model to how we approach food has been percolating at casual diner Bricolage, which opened on the ground floor nine months ago. Step inside and you’ll find only two menu options: a vegetarian set meal and a non‑vegetarian one, both built on whatever surplus or ugly produce has been sent from regional farms that week.

Founded by chefs and Nouri alumni Russell Nathan and Sarah Shum, the space operates on the mission of fostering a community that cares about how food is grown, utilised and eventually composted. The concept harks back to a time when humans had to be more resourceful – a sharp contrast to now, when ingredients are often treated as disposable commodities.

It is in fact pay‑as‑you‑wish here: While Nathan and Shum can advise on a fair amount when asked (typically between $18 and $22), the customer is encouraged to decide on how much the food is worth. Here, the duo share more about their unusual MO, rekindling our collective attitude towards food, and their tips for being more responsible in one’s own kitchen.

Russell, Sarah, the pay-as-you-wish model you guys use at Bricolage is quite unusual in Singapore. Why introduce this?

Sarah Shum (SS): “The pay‑as‑you‑wish model is really a reaction to the increasingly transactional nature of our relationship with food. We feel that meaning is often lost when the focus is solely on the exchange of money. In a modern supermarket, everything is perfectly packaged and sanitised, and consumers are distanced from the reality of a chicken being slaughtered or the immense effort required to grow something as simple as an okra.

By removing fixed prices, we want to challenge people to reconsider how they assign value to what they consume. It’s an invitation to think about the labour, energy and thought that go into a meal, rather than just the market cost of the raw ingredients. Often, people only want to pay for the physical item, like a piece of meat or a vegetable, without accounting for the human work that brought it to the table.”

How does the POV manifest in how you guys cook at Bricolage?

SS: “We’re sticklers for using everything. We want to show reverence to and appreciation for the ingredient that’s in front of us and the people who have produced it, and we also want to show respect to the people who are consuming it. So, as much as we can, we try to source ethically and responsibly, and we try to use everything that we have as much as we can.”

Russell Nathan (RN): “Take the fennel that arrived this week: We’re using the bulbs for a buttermilk soup while the stalks have been turned into a puree for later use, though I’m still deciding what that will be. The leaves have also been processed into a herb oil. Then there are the radishes. We’ll be peeling the skins, which are normally too fibrous to eat, and fermenting them to create new dishes. Naturally, the rest of the radish will go into whatever else we’re cooking for the menu too.”

Bricolage also has a composting programme. Tell us more about it.

RN: “Yes, of sorts. Everything that can’t be transformed into something edible gets saved in the freezer. From time to time, we take a big batch of these food scraps and pack them into our Bokashi composters at the back. It’s a style of composting that utilises enzymes to ferment the food waste. This breaks everything down so that when you eventually put it into the soil, it decomposes much more easily.”

SS: “We always try to use every part of the ingredients we receive and composting is our last resort for inedible scraps and customer waste. It’s a small way we manage food waste and attempt to close the loop in our space. This process is very much a collaborative effort —- when our bins are full, our friends who specialise in composting (compost artisans Cui Fen and Ching Wei) come to collect the compost for use in their community gardens or personal plots. Some of them even have projects with NParks in which they educate others on composting.”

The nose-to-tail and root-to-shoot approach of Bricolage has been trending globally for a few years. Where does Singapore sit in that scene?

RN: “Singapore is a rare beast when it comes to F&B: There are constant issues with manpower, time and space. For a normal business to operate, it’s very difficult to utilise everything. Our rent is subsidised, so we have a certain luxury. If we had to contend with those other commercial pressures, we might not be able to play so differently. However, our hope is to develop systems that other spaces can eventually adopt. We want to build a community of like‑minded people, not just in F&B, but in other fields too.”

Considering you both have a fine-dining background, Bricolage feels very egalitarian. Was that a conscious move?

SS: “You’re one of the few people who’ve brought this up – even though we’re actually quite blatant about it. We noticed that the sustainable dining scene – a term I actually hate using – is often just a lifestyle choice that caters to those who’ve already subscribed to it.

We wanted to make Bricolage more approachable for the everyday Singaporean and democratise the idea that food is vital. We should be thinking more about what we put into our bodies.”

RN: “The space really shows who we are. We want everyone to feel comfortable here. Even if the food seems a bit foreign at first, we encourage people to try new things, and those who have are usually pleasantly surprised.

We get a diverse range of customers – from students to families and older residents. And even though it’s a self‑service space, I’d like to think we provide great service by remembering people, and providing the likes of games as well as books on food education for browsing. We want the space to be a shared resource for the community, which is something that’s lacking in Singapore and why we often collaborate with non‑profit groups for a nominal price or, sometimes, even at no cost.”

What tips would you give to the average person who wants to be more conscious of their food waste?

SS: “Most preservation methods are things people have been doing for centuries, but we’ve forgotten that knowledge in recent decades. Practically speaking, I’d say use your freezer. That’s what I do at home. Most people don’t have the time to immediately ferment every scrap.

When I have leftovers, I put them in the freezer to deal with later. Drying is also easy: Leftover vegetables can be turned into jerky and dried bananas are great. Trust your sense of sight, smell and taste to see if something is still good instead of tossing it out because of the expiry date printed on its packaging – and try to follow the First Expired, First Out rule. This means reaching for ingredients with the earliest expiry dates first to stop them from spoiling. You can also get a Bokashi bin to ferment your food waste and bury those scraps in soil – or find someone who needs the compost.

All that said, it’s more important to start with a mindset shift. There’s no point forcing yourself to do things you don’t believe in. Start with the fundamentals: consuming more mindfully, not over‑buying, and planning properly when you shop. Minimising waste to begin with is a higher priority than figuring out what to do with your coffee grounds.”

An adapted version of this article first appeared in Volume 8 of F ZINE.