When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Irish chef Andrew Walsh knew he had to come up with something innovative or lose all revenue for his Keong Saik Road restaurant.

The lockdown and social distancing measures meant Cure went from receiving an average of 50 diners a day to none.

Since customers could not visit the restaurant, chef Walsh had to find a way to bring his food to them.

As Cure’s modern Irish dishes were not particularly well-suited for home delivery, chef Walsh focused on creating dishes such as meat pies that customers could easily enjoy at home instead. They were never on Cure’s menu but made “an ideal choice for deliveries”, says the 40-year-old.

“We made the bold decision to pivot towards selling Irish beef and Guinness pies, fisherman pies, ratatouille pies, and chicken and leek pies.”

The recipes were cherished family secrets handed down from the chef's grandmother. However, customising the pies for delivery required some tweaking in the kitchen to keep them as heartwarming as ever.

To his delight, the pies were a hit and Cure saw average orders of 300 pies daily. This prompted chef Walsh and his team  to purchase additional freezers and hire more part-time staff to support the growing demand.

“As people adjusted to working from home, our meat pies became more than just a meal –  they became a comforting companion to people not near their loved ones. It spoke volumes about the shared craving for comfort during uncertain times,” he says.

After successfully keeping Cure open for business through 2020, the Irishman notched up another achievement during the pandemic when the restaurant was awarded a Michelin star the following year.

This is just one example of how chef Walsh, a self-professed risk-taker, has stayed successful and relevant in what has been a challenging and uncertain environment for the F&B industry.

According to chef Walsh, the only way to survive is to stay adaptable and pivot quickly when necessary.

“Picture this: we went from being a cosy dine-in spot to a bustling home delivery business practically overnight. The transition wasn't just about changing our operations, it was a complete shift in mindset," says chef Walsh.

"We had to embrace new ways of doing things, learn on the fly, and navigate a new course in uncharted waters.”

If passion and love for F&B are what kept the culinary artist in him going, it is chef Walsh's pragmatism and business acumen that have helped him thrive as a restaurant owner.

"There's no point being a great chef if you can't run a profit and loss. I love the creative side of the business – working on new ideas and new dishes – but if you don't pay the bills, you don't pay the suppliers, then you can't make the food that feeds your creativity,” he says.

Chef Walsh learned the ins and outs of hospitality management from two decades of working in some top establishments in New York, London, and Singapore.

He came to Singapore in 2012 to be the head chef of Michelin-star chef Jason Atherton's Spanish restaurant Esquinas. Then he ventured out on his own three years later with the launch of Cure Concepts Group in 2015.

Today, the Group runs Cure, the Asian-fusion experience restaurant Butcher Boy, the Japanese-inspired Catfish Izakaya, and wine bar 87 Club Street Wine Room.

Chef Walsh also recently added a fifth restaurant, Tilly’s, to his repertoire in September 2023.

Tilly’s creation is a response to the changing post-pandemic demands the F&B industry is facing.

“Costs of running businesses are consistently increasing, and customers are constantly looking for good deals nearer to where they live as work-from-home and hybrid work arrangements become the norm,” says chef Walsh.

The adaptable chef Walsh pivoted again and opened Tilly's in the heart of the residential area of Katong, serving Irish comfort food at an accessible price point to complement his fine dining establishments.

The new venture is reflective of the chef-owner’s versatility and demonstrates just how much he embraces change.

"We're continuously looking at new ideas, new dishes, new marketing, new platforms,” he says.

Opportunities for Cure Concepts are not confined to Singapore. Besides having new international collaborations in the pipeline, chef Walsh is also the culinary concept lead of Ember Beach Club at One&Only Desaru Coast in Malaysia. Occasionally, he invites well-known guests, such as chef Bjorn Shen, to collaborate on exclusive limited-edition menus.

The right system for a growing business

With a four-month-old restaurant in Singapore and planned new launches abroad, chef Walsh had to re-assess his company’s efficiency to adapt to rising costs and shrinking profit margins caused by disruptions to the global supply chain.

Amid this upheaval, Cure Concepts Group's accountant, Ms Cheryl Tan, suggested they implement accounting platform Xero. Chef Walsh admits he was initially skeptical about why the company would need it when they were already paying a professional to do the job.

Now, he is thankful he agreed to using Xero after seeing for himself the company's efficiency gains after a year of using the system.

Xero has saved time for the Group's finance team automating manual paperwork and admin while giving them real time visibility and actionable intel on their profit and loss (P&L), and costs.

Xero’s document and data-capturing software Hubdoc has also been a game-changer. At a company where the chefs and managers are in charge of their own food and beverage costs as well as purchasing, the ability for everyone to individually and easily take photographs of invoices, receipts or bills to upload into a single system has improved their productivity.

This is in stark contrast to the laborious manual invoicing that chef Walsh had to plough through when he worked in London, a process that took an hour a day and added to his already heavy workload.

Now, with all their documents and data in one place, Cure Concepts' chefs and managers can access the dashboards and reports that help them keep better track of their costs.

“Xero gives them open access and they can forecast how they're doing that month, for example if they're spending too much on food or if they need to come down on wine,” says chef Walsh.

“The result is that the Group has been able to keep costs a lot tighter. On average, we are able to reduce costs by 10 to 20 per cent every month.”

With an easy-to-use and efficient accounting software to support them, the Group’s chefs and managers have been a lot less distracted with business administration and can dedicate more time to their core work.

Using Xero has also saved them money in terms of workforce allocation. Since the launch of its two new businesses, Cure Concepts has increased its headcount by 10 employees.

"We're growing and our accountant Cheryl is growing with us because we've freed up her time to help out with new projects,” chef Walsh says.

F&B has traditionally been a highly manual industry and slow to adopt new technologies, a situation that chef Walsh feels needs to change after experiencing the benefits of Xero firsthand.

He shares that the industry can realise significant gains by adopting technology but as ever, the all hands-on chef-proprietor asserts that restaurants need the human touch.

"With digital solutions helping to make running my businesses easier, I can focus on important things like creativity and innovation to help them grow and thrive. And while technology is vital to all businesses these days, the human touch will always be irreplaceable, especially in my business," says chef Walsh.

Learn more about how Xero can help your business.