Willin Low, 35, chef-restaurateur of Wild Rocket, understands this well.
His casual restaurant on Mount Emily, which opened about two years ago, charmed diners with simple, creative Western fare in an intimate, friendly setting.
Now, he is set to repeat his success with his second eatery, a burger restaurant in Cluny Court called Relish.
Opened on Dec 8, the second-floor eatery is just as unintimidating with its largely unadorned white walls and high ceiling. Adding just a bit of fun is a wall mural filled with squiggles among which you can make out cartoon drawings of cows and a chicken.
A row of windows on one side open out to a small balcony with a view of Bukit Timah Road partly covered by the foliage of trees lining the pavement outside. They also let in plenty of light during the day.
It's a place that almost anyone can get comfortable in, whether you are in weekend gear of T-shirt and bermudas or workday shirt and tie. It's trendy but not painfully so.
If there's any fault, it is that the place can get very noisy when it is filled up as the chatter of diners gets bounced off the hard walls and floors.
The service, too, can be erratic, depending on who serves you. If you are lucky, you may get one of the seasoned staff sent over from Wild Rocket who will take the trouble to explain what is placed in front of you. Otherwise, you may get your food just plonked on the table without a word.
The menu is very simple. There are three salads, three side orders, 10 burgers and three desserts. There are also 10 beers which a waiter may help to pair with your choice of burger, as well as some wines, floats, soft drinks and coffee and tea.
Plus, there are three choices from the kids' menu, a soup of the day and a pasta of the day.
Although Low does not do the cooking himself - he still helms the Wild Rocket kitchen - he conceptualised the menu and came up with the recipes.
Both the caesar salad ($15) and the strawberry cheese cake ($9) that I start and end my meal with are very nice versions of the two classic American fare. But the burgers are obviously where the restaurant's focus is.
Having tried six of the 10, I recommend the signature Wild Rocket beef burger ($17), a popular item originally created for Low's first restaurant, for true burger fans.
The chef puts a 170g patty of chopped-up chuck and ribeye in a bun with fresh arugula leaves, sun-dried tomato relish and a Sarawak pepper cream. The relish and pepper add flavour but not so much that it distracts from the beef itself.
Ask for it to be prepared medium rare and it comes perfect - juicy, tasty and with just enough bite in the meat.
Low says his inspiration for the burger came from a trip to Sarawak, where the Ram-lee burger comes with a white pepper sauce.
So for the new eatery, he decided to put in a Ram-lee burger ($19) too, but the version that Singaporeans are familiar with instead - with the beef patty wrapped in an omelette and sprinkled with red onions before being blanketed with sweet chilli sauce.
It tastes good, but it is perhaps a bit too genteel compared to the lusty versions from Malaysian roadside stalls where the greasy burger comes dripping with chilli sauce and mayonnaise, and is so sinfully satisfying.
For non-beef eaters, there are burgers which come with other fillings such as chicken, pork and seafood as well. And they all come with Low's creative touches.
The curry chicken burger ($17) pleases with a patty covered in curry mayo and a few curry leaves. But I would have liked a spicier curry for a stronger character.
The BBQ char siew pork open burger ($19) turns out to be unlike any char siew I've eaten. Low uses soft-bone pork to make it, which is rather unusual, and the meat is cooked till really soft.
Two friends have said that the burger reminded them of a kong bak pau (belly pork bun), and certainly, the texture of the meat and the sweet black sauce it is cooked in both suggest that.
If you shudder at all that meat on offer, then the grilled portobello tofu burger ($18) is what you want. This vegetarian open-faced creation is yummy with the mushroom sitting on top of a slab of grilled tofu, with a layer of eggplant salsa, caramelised onions and melted emmental cheese peeking out in between.
But my favourite is the less healthy seafood burger with lemon mayo ($19).
The patty of chopped-up octopus, fish, shrimp and crabmeat is deep-fried till nicely golden and crispy outside. The mayo adds moistness and richness to smoothen out the flavours.
But the inspired touch is the addition of a pinch of shredded kaffir lime leaves to the patty, which gives it a distinctive aroma. That's something to be relished.
RELISH 501 Bukit Timah Road,
02-01 Cluny Court,
Tel: 6763-1547 Open: Noon to 3pm, 6 to 11pm (Mondays to Fridays); noon to 11pm (Saturdays and Sundays) Food: 4/5 Service: 3/5 Ambience: 3.5/5 Price: Budget above $30 per person
