Teen worked till 2am, roasted by chefs at Michelin-starred restaurant -- but now serves win
Few would associate the finesse of gourmet canapés and fine dining with the fresh-faced youth behind them.
But at just 19, Ong Le Yang has already worked in a Michelin-starred restaurant and clinched a win at the WorldSkills Singapore 2025 competition.
While many chefs trace their culinary beginnings to professional kitchens, Le Yang's journey began much closer to home - watching his grandmother handcraft treats like kueh, tang yuan and bak kwa.
He also fondly remembers helping his mother prepare comforting home-cooked meals from as young as eight, and lending a hand at his aunt's tze char restaurant during family visits to Malaysia.
The first dish Le Yang recalls making was a simple tomato-based pasta. Today, he steers clear of store-bought options, preferring to make his own noodles by hand.
"Homemade fresh pasta is better and greater," he proudly declared.
Though modest about his talents and reluctant to name a "star dish," his pastas are a consistent hit among family and his girlfriend.
Cooking up confidence
Le Yang took up Food and Consumer Education in secondary school. But serious culinary training didn't start until later, when he enrolled in the Nitec in Western Culinary Arts.
"I wasn't someone who started young," he shared. "So my biggest struggle was to catch up and be better. But I kept pushing myself."
And push he did.
Some of Le Yang's toughest days were spent interning at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Singapore.
The pace was "non-stop" and he worked punishing hours, often starting prep at 9.30am and sometimes only getting home during wee hours.
Le Yang told Stomp: "There were nights I'd get home at 2am and think, should I really keep doing this? But I told myself: just one more day. Just keep going."
"It's definitely a rough environment," he admitted. "But I won't say it's that bad. It has toned down a lot now and the chefs took care of me very well."
That six-month internship became a major turning point.
"In the first two months, I couldn't even finish my list of tasks. I could only complete maybe one or two things. But by the end, I was doing it all, and even had free time to help others and cook complex staff meals."
From pasta to podiums
Le Yang's proudest moment came during WorldSkills Singapore 2025 - a rigorous showdown featuring teams from ITE and polytechnics.
"It was a last-minute decision by my chef to have me compete," he said. Despite having only five months to train, he delivered an impressive performance - particularly in the notoriously difficult canapé segment.
"You get four hours to create four types of canapés, eight pieces each. That's 32 items, each with three to four components. So imagine the amount of work needed," Le Yang explained.
"The first few months, it was hard to hit the timing of four hours. We had to make a lot of changes and tweaks.
"But the most challenging one was the salmon Wellington. We went through more than 30 versions before we nailed it, just two weeks before the competition."
It was an incredibly rewarding experience for Le Yang, who won a bronze medal: "All the hard work paid off. Not only for me, but for my lecturers and especially my assistant."
Le Yang is now pursuing a Technical Diploma in Culinary Arts and Restaurant Management, a collaborative programme between ITE and the prestigious Institut Lyfe in France.
He dreams of opening his own restaurant someday: "I want it to be something special. Something uniquely me."
Still, the dish closest to his heart isn't plated in any fine dining kitchen.
"My grandma's rice dumplings," he described with sheer delight. "She adds black bean paste inside, so there's both saltiness and sweetness. With the chilli and everything, there's a special texture and taste. It's a very unique rice dumpling."
Asked if he had any words of advice for his peers to chew on, Le Yang said: "Be like a sponge and keep absorbing. Be humble and stay active. Don't just stand around when you're done - keep going."
