At 5:30 PM, Kindling begins service. The tables are set. The menus are ready. The kitchen is firing. The team is in position. For a guest, this is where the experience begins. For the people behind Kindling, the day has been underway for hours.
At Kindling, where Indonesian-Chinese flavors meet French rendition, the experience is built around more than what arrives on the plate. Food, service, and atmosphere come together through a series of small preparations, conversations, checks, and routines that begin long before the first guest walks through the door.
Before there is a flame, there is kindling. And before there is service, there is preparation.
12 PM | The Kitchen Starts First
For Sous Chef Rezky Rudyanto, the day begins in the kitchen. He checks the panels and gas, receives deliveries from suppliers, and makes sure everything that has arrived is accounted for before it goes into storage. Then comes prep.
By 4 PM, ideally, most of the kitchen is where it needs to be. There is also one constant in the middle of the preparation: staff meal. It is a routine that grounds the kitchen before the pace changes. Chef Rezky has been cooking professionally since graduating in 2017, working his way from his first job in Bali to Kindling, where he has been part of the team since 2024.
The work starts early because by 5:30 PM, there is no more preparing for service. There is only service.
2 PM | The Floor Takes Shape
On the other side of the restaurant, Letashia Narendran, better known as Tasha, begins her day as Restaurant Manager by checking in with the host team. Does anyone need help? From there, her attention moves to the details guests might notice: the dining room, the tables, the water, the things that need to be ready before anyone sits down.
At 4 PM, she finishes grooming. From there, her role becomes a helping hand across the restaurant, from supporting the team on the floor to stepping in when Chef Vallian needs her. During service, she moves through the main dining room, checking on guests, making small talk, and making sure things continue to run as they should.
At 8 PM, when the second dining begins, the rhythm changes again. Tables are reset, the floor is prepared, and the process starts over.
Tasha has spent years in hospitality, beginning with casual dining and working in hostess roles for almost a decade. Kindling, which she has been with since its opening in 2024, was her first experience with a concept this personal.
Here, she says, hospitality is less about simply getting the job done and more about knowing the guest.
3 PM | Keeping the Pieces Together
Axel Gabriel, Marketing & Guest Relations, sits somewhere between the restaurant and everything surrounding it. He starts with the host team, going through the questions that need to be answered before the day begins. That means getting the menus are printed and allergies are communicated. Preparing everything and everyone to a sense of what the evening will look like.
Axel has been with Kindling for around a year and a half, and when he first joined, this concept was a new world for him. His experience has been more rooted in marketing, and much of what he has learned has come from being inside the restaurant itself.
For regular service, he stays close to the host team. For events, his role becomes even more hands-on. There may already be a guest list from a collaboration, but Axel becomes the person closest to the event, from welcoming guests, staying in touch with them throughout the evening, and acting as a bridge between them and the rest of the Kindling team.
It is a different side of hospitality: one that happens around the dining room as much as inside it.
4:30 PM | One Team
Here's where the fun really starts. By late afternoon, the separate parts of Kindling come together. Kitchen. Floor. Host team. Briefing begins with Chef Vallian. The menu for the evening is discussed, allergens are flagged, and everyone gets on the same page before service begins. It is perhaps the least visible part of the guest experience, but one of the most important.
Fine dining is often experienced as something seamless. The guest sees the finished plate, the polished table, the attentive service. They don't see all the hands that help bring those moments together.
5:30 PM | Service
Then the doors open. The kitchen moves at a different pace. The floor begins to fill. Guests settle into their tables.
For Chef Rezky, this is where hours of preparation become plates. For Tasha, it becomes a constant movement through the dining room. Checking, resetting, helping, noticing. And for Axel, it is about staying connected to the people on the other side of the experience. Three different jobs, one service.
And while each person has a different view of the restaurant, the objective is shared: to make the evening feel effortless for the guest.
10 PM | The Night Isn't Quite Over
When the dining room begins to quiet down, the work doesn't immediately stop. Axel prepares the night's report, checking the following day's expected guests and other details. Tasha works through the night report. In the kitchen, Chef Rezky checks what needs to be ready for the following day. If an event is coming up, preparation for that begins too.
By midnight, the kitchen is finally done. The restaurant goes quiet. But tomorrow, it starts all over again.
AFTER HOURS
Away from the restaurant, their lives look a little different.
When he's off the clock, Axel likes to get his friends together to unwind, whether that means trying a new place to eat, catching a movie, or simply spending time together. Tasha keeps things a little closer to home, spending her days off getting groceries, going out, and cooking, often making something as simple as soup. As for Chef Rezky, his downtime is a mix of exercise, his love for all things automotive, barhopping, and, lately, getting into Tamiya RC cars.
The contrast is fitting.
Inside Kindling, their days revolve around precision, timing, and hospitality. Outside it, they return to the small things that make up their own lives.
Perhaps that is what makes a restaurant work in the first place.
Not one grand gesture, but many small ones.
A flame may be what guests eventually see, but every flame starts somewhere.
At Kindling, it starts hours before the first guest arrives.
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Kindling opening hours:
Fri - Wed: Dinner time from 5.30 PM onwards
Follow @kindlingjkt on Instagram for more information.
