Ojeje tonkatsu opens its first site outside Korea in Singapore

Ojeje tonkatsu Singapore opens this month at Raffles City Shopping Centre, the Seoul specialist's first restaurant outside Korea after six outlets at home.

The counter sits at #B1-12, 252 North Bridge Road, a short walk from City Hall MRT station, in a basement food stretch that has pulled in several Korean and Japanese names over the past year. Ojeje built its reputation in Seoul on a narrower idea than most katsu chains: wet-aging the pork for several days before breading and frying it, a step meant to soften the meat without the usual thick batter.

The Singapore menu keeps that signature cutlet, served as tenderloin or sirloin, alongside dishes created for the move: a kadaif prawn, whole prawns wrapped in shredded kadaif pastry and fried to a shattering crust, and a matcha zaru udon built on noodles the kitchen makes in house rather than buying in.

Wet-aging the pork for several days softens the meat without the usual thick batter.

A narrower katsu than the chains around it

That in-house udon sets Ojeje apart from the faster katsu and curry-rice counters that have filled Singapore's malls in recent years, where noodles and sauces typically arrive pre-made. The restaurant is not halal-certified, a detail that will steer some of the lunch crowd toward other counters on the same basement level.

Ojeje arrives in a Raffles City basement that already carries a run of newer, higher-concept openings this year, as landlords lean on rotating food halls rather than long leases to keep footfall moving through older malls.

Singapore's crowded katsu counter

Tonkatsu has multiplied across the island over the past two years, from standalone Japanese imports to local chains chasing the same wet-aged, thin-crumb style Ojeje is now betting on. Where Ojeje lands against that competition, and whether a second Singapore site follows, depends on how the basement counter holds up once the opening crowds thin, a test Singapore's food courts set for every new entrant. The brand has not said whether a second Singapore address is already planned, only that it is watching how the Raffles City counter performs through its first few months.