Alain Perez, 35, was born to a Singaporean mother and French father in France. Since then, he has lived mostly in the Southwest of France with his grandparents, occasionally travelling to Singapore to visit his parents (who have since separated). He lived a simple but peaceful life, working as an aircraft technician.
He later took on a job as operations manager at a popular French bakery-cafe chain (he declined to disclose its name) in Singapore for two years before the pandemic. His dad used to be CEO of the same bakery-cafe chain in Singapore back then, before he left to set up his own French restaurant in late 2020 in the north of the island.
However, the pandemic struck shortly after and his father’s now-defunct brasserie (he declined to share its name) was in trouble due to low footfall and manpower issues. So Alain flew back to Singapore under a work pass in 2021 to help out, having spent less than a year in France during the Covid lockdown to be with family and friends.
Frenchman in a kopitiam
Unfortunately, dad’s restaurant eventually closed down in mid-2025 as it couldn’t recover from its pandemic losses, so the family had to pivot to something more low-stakes that required less manpower. This resulted in two hawker stalls called Ma Cuisinette, serving both French dishes like mussels in cream and other Western ones like pizza. The name means “Little Kitchen” in French. “Père et Fils”, as written on their signboard, means father and son.
It was Alain who spotted an opportunity: a vacant stall at an air-conditioned food court in Greenwich near Seletar.
Today, the father-son duo runs two outlets. Alain holds the fort at the Greenwich food court while his dad works at the Chinatown kopitiam outlet (pictured above). They both handle everything from cooking to cashiering, with the help of some staff.
No point having regrets leaving France to become hawker in SG
“[I came to Singapore because] I was happy to see my dad again, and if I’m able to help him out in the process, as a son, that’s what I will do,” Alain tells 8days.sg.
When asked if he regrets leaving France, he drawls flippantly: “Meh!” “I don’t benefit from looking back”. He adds: “You shouldn’t live with regrets or [dwell] on the past. Your past shaped you and now you move forward and experience [the present] as much as you can.”
Born in France and raised by grandparents
Alain grew up in Léguevin, a tiny village in the southwest of France on the outskirts of Toulouse.
“My parents separated when I was young,” he shares. “Both my parents travelled a lot for work around Asia, working in F&B at resorts and hotels.” His French grandparents raised him, with Alain only occasionally visiting his folks in Singapore.
His mum is Chinese-Peranakan Singaporean and also in her 60s. She met his dad in France and later worked together at the same hotel in Singapore. Alain’s mum is currently working at a resort in Florida.
“I love both my parents unconditionally,” shares the oldest of five siblings. “My grandparents raised me that way.” Alain’s siblings were all raised separately and now live in different countries with relatives.
Still speaks with a Singlish accent
Despite living almost his whole life in France, Alain speaks English with a strong Singlish accent, with only the slightest French lilt. “Growing up, during the short period of time I spent with my mother, she would speak English with this Singlish accent, so that’s where I got it from,” he explains.
“I’ve always been fluent in both [English and French] — I’ve been hearing those two languages since I was a kid,” he adds.
Worked as aircraft technician in France before becoming hawker
At 18, Alain attended hospitality school Lycee Hotelier de Toulouse and graduated with a Chef de Rang 3 to 4 Luxe certificate (which according to Alain, qualifies you to work as front-of-house staff in three to four-star hotels.)
But he wanted something different. So Alain enrolled in a weeks-long flight steward diploma crash course.
“Stewarding was the middle ground of [F&B and hospitality],” he explains. Unable to land a flight steward job, a relative in the industry got him a job as a part-time aircraft technician. What was supposed to be a placeholder job eventually became full-time, and he worked his way up to become team leader. “I was good at it,” he says proudly.
“We repaired seats, installed or changed oxygen masks, wired up monitors,” he says. “Installing paper walls was one of the worst because there can’t be any bubbles.”
He tells 8days.sg he took no pay cut switching to the hawker life. When asked if he’d return to his aircraft tech job, he says, “If they’d take me back, no problem.”
“Being a technician is peaceful, the airplane seats don’t talk back,” he jokes. “It can get chaotic as a hawker, which is not really my thing, but I enjoy taking care of others [with food].”
Married a Singaporean customer
What was meant to be just a visit to help dad turned permanent when Alain met his Singaporean wife, Crystal, 34, at his father’s now-defunct brasserie, just two months after he flew back to Singapore. “She came to the restaurant and we started chatting till 3am,” he says. “We would stay up late watching anime shows.”
Crystal works in sales and doesn’t help at his food court stall. “She sometimes offers, but I don’t want to bother her,” Alain explains.
The couple got married in 2025 and are expecting their first child this June.
As for whether he’d ever return to France, Alain responds, “Who knows where life will take us — as you can see, it’s been full of surprises for me.”
“The village I lived in France is more peaceful and quiet,” he says. He stayed with his grandparents in their house which has a garden. He now lives in a HDB flat near Punggol. “[Back in France] my friends and I would drive to Spain on weekends, other times I would spend it with my grandparents helping them with gardening,” he adds. “Singapore is different, but in a good way. It’s a great technology-driven country.”
Hawker stalls currently profitable
Ma Cuisinette opened in Greenwich last June, and in Chinatown last October. Both stalls have been profitable, though Alain admits, “some months are tough, depending on footfall.” Most of their customers are locals, with Caucasians making up about 10 to 20 per cent of overall clientele.
Photo: Google Maps/d
“I don’t bite”
He declined to share how much was invested in the stalls. “There were talks about opening another outlet, but [personally], I’m more grounded. I prefer to make sure a place is totally under control [before expanding], rather than opening halfway and ending up without enough manpower,” Alain explains.
Some customers are surprised to see a Frenchman cooking at the stall. Alain chortles, “I think [they don’t expect someone like me here], but at the end of the day, I’m actually quite approachable — I don’t bite.”
Three French dishes on menu
The three French-driven dishes at his Greenwich stall are the Mussels in Cream ($10.90), Mediterranean Lamb ($12) and Bouillabaisse ($12), the latter a tomato-rich seafood stew from the South of France.
The lamb is first seared, then slow-cooked for hours.
But his go-to dish from home isn’t on the menu. “My favourite dish in France is a winter dish, the raclette (melted cheese poured over hot potatoes and cold cuts),” he says. “But I can’t sell it here because it’s too expensive. Plus the weather is too hot here.”
“I sweat until [it reaches] my buttcrack”
Alain admits that the hardest part about being a hawker and living in Singapore is dealing with the heat and humidity. “I sweat until [it reaches] my buttcrack,” he quips.
The stall usually gets busy during dinner hours, with up to ten minutes of waiting time.
Pizzas from $10
Interestingly, the bestseller at the Chinatown outlet is not French food, but pizza. “It’s affordable and nothing fancy, but a heartwarming dish,” Alain says.
“There’s pasta, salmon and burgers too, it’s mostly just [generic] western food,” Alain laughs about his varied menu. He opines that people usually go to ‘proper restaurants’ for French cuisine rather than a hawker stall, so they expanded the menu to include more familiar comfort food.
His dad, “an amazing cook,” taught him the basics. Alain says he then “improved it over time,” tweaking and crafting new dishes by watching YouTube cooking videos.
The Chinatown outlet offers more pizza options and also dishes like Fish & Chips ($8.90), and Clam Aglio Olio ($8.90).
Alain says they’re still experimenting with their offerings, which explains the rather arbitrary menu. “For now, we’re just trying to see what works and what’s practical to cook,” he says. “We’re not catering to a specific crowd, just anyone who wants to eat.”
Ma Cuisinette has two outlets at #01-09/10, Greenwich V, 1 Seletar Rd, S807011 and #01-52 MR1, 5 Banda St, S050005. More info via Instagram.
Top In Asia
