On Thursday night ( April 25 ), Singapore’s dining industry lost one of its rising stars. Chef Tariq Helou, user of the 18- chair restaurant Fleurette, died quickly a few months shy of his 30th birthday. His cause of death is unfamiliar.
With his Division Supper Club, a series of constantly oversubscribed pop-ups in 2019, Tariq entered the dining industry. Strongly separate, he went on to establish Fleurette with funds raised from friends and family. The restaurant’s beautiful, lyrical dishes were met with scream reviews.
Like most restaurants in his field, he aspired to be a Michelin sun or to be listed among the nation’s 50 Best Restaurants. Fleurette had but to make it to both positions, possibly because the dining experience was subpar, but perhaps because of the one thing that made Tariq so pleasant: his modesty.
In this day and age, Tariq preferred to be quiet and out of the spotlight in his home. A politician or celebrity was never the one to make a splash on social media, but it was never strange to see them at Fleurette’s U-shaped counter or in its close private dining room. He little preferred to let his meals speak for itself.
No one was more appalled than Tariq when traveling website Explore Worldwide named him Asia’s “most Googled restaurant” earlier this year. ” It must be some kind of failure”! he told me that night. ” 1.6 million requests? “?