Janice Wong: Multisensory Edible Art
Janice Wong is a visionary pastry chef known for creating edible art on the plate and on the wall. Her multisensory palate-pleasing desserts and delightful art installations reflect a sweet body of work where art meets design and design meets art.
It all started while visiting a farm in Australia, where she popped a strawberry straight from the plant. With unexpected flavours bursting in her mouth, that piece of strawberry changed her life forever. It led her to train at the prestigious culinary school Le Cordon Bleu Paris.
The multi-award winning culinary chef counts world-renowned master chefs Ferran Adrià, Grant Achatz, Pierre Hermé and Oriol Balaguer among those who had influenced her. After sumptuous stints overseas working alongside celebrity chefs, Janice returned home to Singapore and opened her first dessert restaurant 2am:dessertbar in 2007 at age 24.
Janice has since been whipping up a range of indulgent confectionery (including custom chocolate bon bons, cakes and ice cream), opened 2am:dessertbar and 2am:lab inTokyo, launched several pop-up dessert bars and mounted numerous exhibitions in Singapore and overseas.
The three-time Pastry Chef of the Year winner (World Gourmet Summit Awards 2011, 2013, 2015) staged seven amazing edible art installations in Singapore in 2011 alone. Using edible items as her only tools, Janice conceptualised and designed edible installations including marshmallow ceilings and gumdrop-covered walls. She has since been commissioned by local and international galleries, restaurants and blue chip clients to craft interactive art. Pre-Covid, she held about 40 edible art exhibitions every year for public and private events.
One of her biggest projects was the opening of a sweets shop at the MGM Cotai in Macau in January 2018, where a first-of-its-kind 7.3 feet tall chocolate fountain with petals of dark, milk and white chocolate became the centre of attraction.
Trichromatic. 1.5m x 1.5m. Medium: marshmallow, food colour. (ICC, New York, 2013)
Utopia, first of lollipop series. 1.2m 1m each. Medium: chocolate, marshmallow. (Napa Valley, USA, 2015)
The artisan is also a culinary stylist, photographer and author of four books namely Perfection In Imperfection (2011), Kochi Yuzu (2012), A Taste of Kochi Citrus (2018) and Dim Sum Bokk (2013, co-author chef Ma Jian Jun).
Having spent a 15-year culinary career pushing the boundaries of dessert-making and edible art, Janice is now on an ambitious quest to plant 1,000 cacao trees across Singapore. This groundbreaking initiative, made possible through community collaboration, she’s hoping that by 2023 Singapore may be amongst the region’s leaders in artisanal chocolate, churning out entirely local tree-to-bar chocolate — in the middle of a shopping mall, no less.
The Singaporean chef’s new chocolate-focused, multi-layered concept Pure Imagination with a full-scale chocolate production facility taking centrestage aims to bring the community together through food, education as well as stimulate creativity.
Chocolaty culinary experience start at Pure Imagination, Great World City
“I’ve always been fascinated by the adaptability and creativity of chocolate as a medium and a craft,” says Janice. “Over the years, I’ve cultivated friendships with cacao farmers and suppliers from all over the world but when you think about chocolate in Asia, people immediately mention Vietnam, the Philippines, or Indonesia — all countries that make amazing tree-to-bar chocolate — however, it got me thinking if it was possible for us to do the same in land-scarce Singapore. Thankfully, with the help of amazing partners, we have now embarked on a years- long community effort to eventually fulfil our dream of a true made-in-Singapore, bean-to-bar chocolate.”
These partners include Great World City (where Pure Imagination is located), Gardens By The Bay (home to numerous cacao trees), and Spectra Secondary School (about 40 trees have already been planted with the help of students and staff).
In addition, Janice will conduct lessons for Spectra’s students multiple times a year, with a select few to be given an internship at Pure Imagination. Her hope is to inspire the next generation to stretch their imaginations and explore careers in hospitality.
Pure Imagination. A quest to plant 1,000 cacao trees islandwide, hoping to make Singapore amongst Asia’s leaders in artisanal chocolate by 2023.
Guests of Pure Imagination can learn first-hand about the chocolate-making process. Short, small group tours of the facility are part of a Degustation Menu to demystify the bean-to-bar process (following prevailing Covid safety measures).
The chocolaty culinary experience will enable paying participants to touch and smell raw cacao, taste the pulp, witness the roasting process, and more. Along the way, guests will try cascara tea (made from steeping dried cacao skin), sorbet, nibs, and finishing with a single origin chocolate mousse. (Advance booking is required).
For now, dried cacao will be flown in from the Philippines, Thailand, Colombia and Trinidad; during harvest season in Thailand and Malaysia, fresh pods will be brought in as well. Eventually, Singapore-grown pods will become part of the offering.
As I was writing this story, I caught myself humming “Pure Imagination” from the film Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory:
Come with me and you'll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you'll see
Into your imagination
We'll begin with a spin
Travelling in the world of my creation
What we'll see will defy explanation…
Pure Imagination degustation menu for bean-to-bar dining experience
Janice’s Pure Imagination is not quite a Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. Not yet anyway. But if there were anyone who could pull off a similar feat, the visionary pastry chef would be at the centre of it.
Debbie | ws
Images: janicewong.online @janicewongsg @janicewong2am | Homepage photo taken from So Good Magazine|Location: Pure Imagination, Great World City, 1 Kim Seng Promenade, #B1-K119 Singapore 237994 | www.pureimagination.sg