Nobu Singapore names Belkacem Boubekeur executive chef
The Algerian-French chef arrives from Nobu Dubai, where he led a 45-strong brigade at Atlantis The Royal, to run the Japanese-Peruvian kitchen at Four Seasons Hotel Singapore.
Nobu Singapore has a new executive chef. Belkacem Boubekeur takes over the kitchen at the Four Seasons Hotel Singapore outpost this month, arriving from Nobu Dubai's Atlantis The Royal.
Boubekeur was born in Ténès, Algeria, and grew up in southwest France. He has spent more than two decades in luxury hospitality, most of it inside the Nobu group.
He started at Nobu Monaco, inside the Fairmont Monte Carlo, where his team catered events including the wedding of Prince Albert II. He later moved to Nobu Dubai at Atlantis The Royal, where he rose to chef de cuisine and ran a kitchen of 45 cooks.
Three Nobu kitchens in, patience reads less like advice than autobiography.
From Monaco kitchens to the Gulf
That path across three Nobu outposts gives him a working knowledge of the group's Japanese-Peruvian repertoire and its logistics, from sourcing fish in the Gulf to running a brigade at hotel scale. Four Seasons Singapore says he will lead with a focus on mentoring junior cooks, a priority the group has repeated at other recent Nobu appointments.
His own cooking keeps a French throughline. Duck prepared in the style of southwest France remains a fixture on his menus, and he names foie gras as the first dish he cooked professionally. Asked which Nobu dish represents him best, he picked tiradito, the thinly sliced raw fish in a citrus-chilli sauce that sits at the Japanese-Peruvian core of the brand.
Nobu Singapore opened in 2021 inside the Four Seasons on Orchard Boulevard, one of more than 40 Nobu restaurants worldwide. The brand has kept expanding this year, including plans for a 50-room Nobu hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
A crowded field for Japanese fine dining
The appointment lands as Singapore's high-end Japanese dining scene keeps filling in: chef Takeshi Araki opened the smaller Ao this year, and Waku Ghin added a four-seat counter with an early-evening menu. Boubekeur's task is less about opening something new than keeping a decade-old kitchen current against newer arrivals.
He has one piece of advice for cooks starting out, repeated in Nobu Singapore's own announcement: be patient, learn from people with more experience, and keep improving. It reads like standard hospitality copy, but it also describes his own two decades inside one restaurant group, three postings in, before reaching Singapore.
