Prive Group shuts all its restaurants, the latest F&B casualty in Singapore

SINGAPORE – The Prive Group has closed all its restaurants in what has been a brutal 2025 for the food and beverage industry.

Two of its five restaurants, both located at the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM), will be taken over by Commonwealth Concepts, which operates food brands such as Fat Cow, Pasta Mania, Bedrock Bar & Grill, Swissbake and Baker & Cook.

Prive chairman Yuan Oeij, 55, told The Straits Times that the combination of challenging market conditions coupled with rising operational costs led to the closures. He said: “Business started slowing down noticeably towards the end of 2023 and just got worse each year.”

ST found out about the closures from a text message the group sent to its suppliers, informing them that the restaurants will close on Aug 31.

“We will be appointing a professional independent financial adviser who will contact you in due course,” the message read. “Please note that any next steps will be handled through this adviser, and we ask for your patience as we work through this transition.”

Apart from Empress, a smart-casual Chinese restaurant at ACM, the group also ran Prive at ACM, Holland Village, Botanic Gardens and Wheelock Place, known for casual cafe food including Brioche Kaya Toast and Juicy Lucy Burger.

Commonwealth Concepts will continue to operate Empress at ACM, its chief operating officer Brian Stampe, 54, told ST. The restaurant remains open to the public, with no disruptions in service, he said.

The space occupied by Prive will reopen on Sept 4 as a Baker & Cook outlet.

Mr Oeij said the Commonwealth Concepts takeover of the two ACM restaurants helped to retain jobs for existing staff, and ensured that prior event bookings made with the two venues could be fulfilled.

“At the moment, we are doing our best, given the resources we have, to manage the situation,” he added. “We tried our best to find ways that would allow the other outlets to have continuity in order to protect jobs, including discussions with potential investors or interested parties, but in this market, it was extremely difficult to find a solution.”

The Prive Group, established in 2007, started from one upscale restaurant at Keppel Bay. It went on to operate nightlife spots such as Stereolab and Mink, both now defunct.

By 2018, it had grown the Prive brand into a chain.

Soon, business started to suffer and it shuttered its outlets at Jewel Changi Airport and 313 Somerset in 2025. The one at 313 Somerset was repossessed in February by Lendlease, the landlord. Its ground level space at high-end mall Paragon was taken over by American coffee chain Blue Bottle, which opened there in July.

The group had also been in the news in 2021.

Its former chief executive, French national Jean-Luc Vu Han, went on trial for hurling vulgarities at and assaulting a teenager in an unprovoked attack in a lift. The incident on Nov 22, 2019, happened when the man was in a drunken rage, and the attack affected the then 13-year-old boy so badly that he was still scared of taking the lift about a year later.

In 2022, the Frenchman was

sentenced to two weeks of jail time, and had to pay a $3,500 fine

for assaulting the boy.

The restaurant industry has been struggling in the last three years, as post-Covid-19 revenge spending ended. Diners are choosing to spend their strong Singapore dollars overseas or are tightening their belts amid global economic and political uncertainties. Operators have been struggling with high overheads and the dearth of manpower.

In 2024, 3,790 new food businesses started up and 3,047 wound down. The number shuttered was an almost 20-year high, surpassed only in 2005, which saw 3,352 closures.

As at August, according to figures from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, 2,333 new food businesses started up in 2025 and 1,724 have shuttered.

The turmoil has spared no type of food business: casual, upmarket or fine-dining.

Notable closures in 2025 include one-Michelin-starred restaurants Euphoria and Alma by Juan Amador, both in August. They announced their closing at the beginning of August, right after the launch of the 2025 Singapore Michelin Guide, which took place at the end of July.

Fine-dining Japanese restaurant Imamura, at Amara Sanctuary Resort Sentosa, has also shuttered.

Brands such as Eggslut, Manhattan Fish Market and Burger & Lobster have packed up. Japanese restaurants and chains, ever so popular with diners, have also taken a beating, with ramen brands Kanada-Ya and Ramen Santouka exiting. Souffle pancake chain Fluff Stack, with five outlets, is gone too.

Even food kiosks are not immune. Har Har Chicken, which sold prawn paste chicken, closed its three outlets barely a year after launching.

Hotpot chain Haidilao shuttered its flagship restaurant at Clarke Quay on Aug 31, when the lease expired. The restaurant opened in 2012 and marked the chain’s entry into Singapore. Earlier in 2025, it closed its suburban restaurants in Bedok, Pasir Ris and Punggol.

There is more to come. Les Mains, a bakery in Opera Estate, announced that it will close at the end of September. So, too, will heritage restaurant Ka-Soh in Greenwood Avenue, Flourish Bakehouse at the Singapore Management University and halal bakery Fluff Bakery in North Bridge Road.