SINGAPORE – They are the quirky ones. The places which know your likes and dislikes. Where you head to for food you cannot get elsewhere, where you take friends visiting from abroad.

And yet, owners of independent restaurants, those scrappy places that are not part of a restaurant group, chain or hotel, are having a hard time. The closure of indie restaurants in the last year has been sobering for operators.

In February, Lolla, a modern Mediterranean restaurant in Ann Siang Road,

called it a day after 14 years.

In March, two other indies are set to close:

burger stalwart Relish

They are but the latest casualties. In 2025, barbecue omakase restaurant The Social Outcast, modern South-east Asian restaurant Meh’r by Inderpal, steakhouse Wild Blaze and Korean restaurant Onmi, among others, shuttered.

British chef Paul Longworth, 47, who runs Encore by Rhubarb in Duxton Hill, says: “We are in really, really dangerous times at the moment with the F&B scene. It’s very tough. We are struggling. And for the life of me, I don’t know why.”

There is evidence to show that every part of the food scene in Singapore has been suffering since 2024, when the world emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Borders had fully opened up by then, and the...