Dempsey Hill wasn’t always a bustling lifestyle, food and entertainment hub filled with charming colonial-era architecture and lush verdure.
The 86-hectare site started off in Singapore’s early, pre-independence history as a nutmeg plantation, before being transformed in the mid-1800s into a site for British military barracks.
This arrangement lasted until 1971 when the British troops withdrew from Singapore — only to be replaced by the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) — and Central Manpower Base (CMPB) took over.
They, too, moved on in 1989 to permanent locations elsewhere, leaving the private sector to take over and fend for the place themselves.
It was at that crossroads in Dempsey Hill’s history that the history of Ling Ling by The Wine Company first began, almost completely by accident after its co-founder Belinda Lim found herself stuck with “a container-load of South African wine”.
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From Polymer Sales to vino-preneur
Back then, the peppy silver was a sales manager by trade – “a creative person stuck working in a German company”, she quips – who spent most of her days flitting back and forth between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
Then, serendipitously, colleagues in the know introduced the opportunity to invest in South African wine.
Except in Singapore, at least during that time in the 1990s, it was not. They also failed to establish a distribution network that could work as a metaphorical carrefour and had to sell their wine the old-fashioned way – at a physical location.
The vine grows
Business officially began in 1996. As they had thousands of bottles to clear, Belinda started serving nibbles (“a simple sausage and cheese platter” plus “frozen pizzas from Cold Storage heated up in a little oven”) and music (from an old-school boombox) to go along with customers’ vino, just to get things moving.
"As we got bigger, we got noticed by the authorities, so I had to put a pause while I got everything sorted out."
They still had room to grow – in 2003, Belinda and her partners shifted into a bigger restaurant space at Block 14D, where they really started to drum up the crowd.
Her husband, Dan Yeong, came on board to help her run the back end of the business, which helped – a little.
Eat, drink and be merry
According to Belinda, a large part of that early success came from identifying Dempsey for its potential as a lifestyle hotspot – and establishing an identifiable niche within that space.
"I was a bit of a radical in that way."
To this day, bona fide Singaporean favourites like char kway teow, Hokkien mee and bak kut teh hold court alongside the baked Camemberts and filet mignons you’d expect from a wine restaurant with over 300 labels from 50 wineries.
There are wine pairings listed beside most items – char kway teow included.
In that vein, most dishes are reasonably priced. A family of four, with a bottle of wine or two, shouldn’t expect to run up a bill much more than $40 per person.
Business ain’t easy
Dempsey Hill became even hotter at the end of 2006, when the Singapore Land Authority decided to rebrand the locale into a lifestyle village.
The gradual addition of notable contemporaries like Huber’s Butchery, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s The Dempsey Cookhouse and Bar, and Michelin-starred establishments like Candlenut or Burnt Ends, over the years have made Dempsey Hill feel far more vibrant than the jungle it once was.
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Business is now a lot more competitive to match – for both the tender bidding process that secures a restaurant’s continued existence at Dempsey Hill, and the limited supply of customers that throng its slopes on the weekend.
Belinda’s establishment has had to evolve to follow suit. She moved to even bigger premises in 2020, giving the restaurant its full name of Ling Ling by The Wine Company to signify its fusion attitude – just in time for the pandemic.
They shifted quickly into delivery mode, increasing menu options to keep the ship running and all hands on deck (with some assistance from government grants).
Nowadays, business is back to full roar. Given its longstanding status at Dempsey, many of the crowd have matured from wine-supping yuppies to silvers with family, or grandkids.
Might want to open a porridge shop one day
Although Belinda hopes to one day put the business to rest by selling off her share in it, she’s not sure if that’ll lead to the usual “retirement with travelling and lots of sitting around”.
“I’m a workaholic. I do think I’d like to take a break, just to stop for a while and to have a rest after so many years, but then I’d still like to run a small eatery – maybe something simple, where we sell porridge, just the two of us.
Ling Ling by The Wine Company
Location: Dempsey Road, Block 8, Singapore 247696
Opening Hours: Sun – Thu, noon – 11pm; Fri & Sat, noon – midnight
Tel: +65 6261 5123
Website: https://www.thewinecompanyonline.com.sg/
