Order In: Saté Kampar Is Serving International Comfort Foods

Ange Branca says she’s letting her team inspire the menu, to share what she calls the “hidden hands” in the restaurant industry.


A vegan green curry stir-fry | Courtesy of Saté Kampar

Welcome to Order In, our new coronavirus-related column where we reach out to restaurant owners and chefs to talk about what they chose to do with their businesses during the crisis, how they made that choice, and what delicious foods you can still get from them via takeout to offer support in this difficult time.

Ange Branca, owner and chef at Saté Kampar

We decided to stay open because... “Staying open was a big decision. I was trying to figure out how to balance protecting my employees from getting sick and also knowing that a lot of them don’t have health insurance and they would need money to take care of themselves. So, I decided we would do take-out only.”

We decided to stop doing delivery because… “I understand that if we did delivery we’d probably do a bigger volume, but we’re comfortable doing pickup only because I don’t want to have to pack my kitchen right now with too many people.”

Our business model right now is… “Pick-up only. You can go here and order your food and pay online, and then you’ll get a text message when it is ready and we’ll put it on a table outside so you can get it. It’s no-contact pick-up. We’re open Thursday through Sunday right now because I want to make sure my employees can rest.”

Right now we’re cooking… “Comfort food from all over the world. We’re taking inspiration each member of the staff, and their comfort food. It’s the food that they want to share, and that makes them happy. There’s a section of the menu called ‘staff inspiration’ and its all their food — these are my prep cooks and my dishwashers. They are people who work every day on the food that the chefs take credit for, but they don’t get to share their food, and they’ve been really excited to get to do something like this. It’s been a lot of fun. At this time, it’s not so much about Saté or a Malaysian experience. It’s about sticking together and helping each other.  We have been serving everything from chicken tinga to chicken adobo and even plant-based meals. Sales are down of course, but we are having a lot of fun and making every day special. I want everyone to experience the flavors of the team. We’re showing off the hidden hands in the shadows of all restaurant concepts and experiences.”

This week you should order… “I’m just asking my cooks what they’re craving, what food would be comforting to them, so some of cooks are also Malaysian and they pointed out that we’ve never put a Ramly burger on the menu before, which is like a street burger that you can get in Malaysia.”

The hardest thing right now is … “Trying to do the right thing. Everyone has it in them to do the right thing, but it’s so hard when there are just no resources at all.”