The world’s first digital restaurant just launched in Singapore.
La Takorea, a Korean-Mexican fusion restaurant developed in just 48 hours for episode four of The Apprentice: One Championship Edition (2021), went live on April 9 via GrabFood delivery.
The founders (and former show contestants) Joy Koh, Nazee Sajedi, Jessica Ramella, Niraj Puran Rao, Clinton Tudor, Kexin Ye, and Paulina Purnomowati created the concept of La Takorea as a digital restaurant brand and also as a partner to TiffinLabs, a food tech company with virtual kitchens worldwide.
The digital restaurant follows the same basic premise as virtual or “ghost” kitchens, in that it’s an online-only brand offering food exclusively for delivery.
The international team behind La Takorea also had to spotlight Next Gen’s vegan chicken label Tindle, a hero ingredient they include in several of the restaurant’s fusion menu items such as tacos and baos.
While La Takorea does serve animal products, there are several wholly vegetarian (not vegan) options that combine Tindle’s plant-based meat with dairy cheese; an increasingly common go-to for chains such as Burger King and Starbucks.
“We found out that our target consumers — Millennials and Gen Z — tend to be health conscious and interested in sustainability,” Sajedi told Esquire.
According to Statista, the most commonly cited factor by Singaporeans following a plant-based diet in 2020 was “general health reasons.” Specific concerns over meat and fish production and the significant health impact of processed meat are a close second and third.
Vegan takeout and digital restaurants
Around the world, consumers are ordering an increasing amount of meat-free takeout. And last year, Deliveroo reported a 60 percent increase in vegan food orders in Singapore alone.
La Takorea’s founders utilized TiffinLabs’ customer data to workshop both the type of business they aimed to create as well as the type of food it would offer in order to cater to the largest demographic. In this instance, combining plant-forward meals with a digital platform.
“Developing this digital restaurant was a real eye-opener for us,” Koh told the Singapore Tatler. “It made us completely rethink the way food can be conceptualized and brought to consumers in a way that transformed their dining experience.”
“This is a ground-breaking concept that offers tremendous value to consumers and revolutionises the way food is developed and delivered,” said TiffinLabs founder and chairman Kishin RK.
La Takorea is now available for delivery exclusively via GrabFood throughout the majority of Singapore.
