Heritage
Walk into a carpet shop in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar and time slows down. Rolls of hand-knotted wool and silk lean against the walls like library shelves — Hereke, Kayseri, Anatolian village weaves — each one a map of symbols: the elibelinde for motherhood, the ram’s horn for strength, the evil eye woven in to protect the home it will one day warm. A good carpet is not decorated; it is written.
That weaving tradition travelled the same trade routes as our recipes — and it landed in the same Singapore streets. Arab Street, a two-minute walk from our door, has been Singapore’s textile quarter since the 1800s: silk merchants, batik sellers, and carpet shops whose owners still unroll Anatolian weaves for customers the way their grandfathers did. Kampong Gelam does not imitate the bazaar; it inherited it.
We think about this every time we set the dining room — the woven runners, the patterned cushions, the warmth underfoot. A Turkish table without textiles is like çay without the tulip glass: technically possible, spiritually wrong. Dinner at LAYALI comes with the full inheritance — charcoal, copper, weave and all.
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halal restaurant on Arab Street
Everything we write about, we cook daily — 10:00am to 1:00am at 257 Beach Road, Kampong Gelam. Charcoal-fired, family-owned, five minutes from Bugis MRT.