Chef Don Lim: the founder behind Don Pie

Most food brands are named after a place or an idea. Don Pie was named after a person, and the person is still at it. This is what the public record says about Chef Don Lim, the founder of Don Pie and co-founder of the kitchen that bakes it today, with the uncertain bits marked as uncertain.

Who is Chef Don Lim?

Chef Don Lim (林德發) is a Singapore baker and cook, the founder of Don Pie and a co-founder of Chicken Pie Kitchen & Don Signature Crab, where the pies are baked today under the DonChef name. The brand describes the kitchen’s cooking as “West meets East”: British-style pies on one side, Chinese crab soup on the other. The kitchen tells his life in its own words in The Original Don Story, which is worth reading alongside this page.

Where did the recipe come from?

The brand’s own account is that Chef Don created his chicken pie recipe in 1983, while baking pastries for a staff cafeteria at a large technology company, and has developed it ever since. The menu’s tagline, in the brand’s words, is “Singapore’s original Chicken Pie, since 1983”. We treat 1983 as the recipe’s birth year, not as the year the shop opened, and we do not claim it was Singapore’s first chicken pie: older bakeries exist, and even the kitchen’s own page on who invented the Singapore chicken pie says nobody can name one person.

The pie he built is in the old-school Hainanese tradition: chunky chicken, potato and vegetables in a spiced filling, with half a hard-boiled egg inside, under a golden, flaky crust. The family’s Hainanese food roots go back further, to a chicken rice stall on Purvis Street, and the kitchen’s Singapore Pie site tells the Lim Tee Kheng story behind them.

When did Don Pie open?

The first shop, “DON: Your Personal Pie Club”, opened at Far East Square in the CBD. The brand’s About page says 2000; its relaunched pie club site says 2001. It grew into a restaurant across the street at China Square Central. By 2008 a food blogger was writing it up at 20 Cross Street, with a whole pie at $18. Read more on the first shops at Far East Square and China Square.

Why did he sell Don Pie?

Around 2014 to 2015, Chef Don sold the Don Pie brand. Articles that interviewed him mention money troubles at the time. The brand’s About page says the name has since changed hands several times. Sources disagree on the year: 2014 in the About page and several articles, November 2015 in two 2017 food blogs. We use “around 2014 to 2015”.

What did he do next?

He cooked crab. In about 2015 he opened Don Signature Crab in a coffee shop at Blk 206 Toa Payoh North, selling claypot crab bee hoon soup, often single-handed. In late 2019 he brought his pies back as Don’s Pie & Cake at Toa Payoh Food Centre II. This is the chapter people still search for: Don Pie in Toa Payoh, the full story.

Where is Chef Don Lim now?

In 2021, during the pandemic, Chef Don asked his nephew, Kelvin Leong, to help revive the business. Together they opened Chicken Pie Kitchen & Don Signature Crab at 39 Tyrwhitt Road, opposite Jalan Besar Stadium, where DonChef’s pies are baked in small batches in deck ovens, with pastry made in-house. The business later added takeaway kiosks at AMK Hub, Wisma Atria, White Sands and Tiong Bahru Plaza.

Chef Don Lim co-founded the business, and he still appears at the kitchen’s events. Every outlet selling his pies is listed in our outlet guide.

Food writers have framed this as a comeback. One 2023 headline put it simply: the Don is back.

What do people say about his pies?

The most common thing reviewers say is that the pie tastes the way they remember it. Generous filling, the egg, and value for the size come up again and again. Not everyone is converted: one reviewer wanted a more buttery crust, and some diners say they come for the crab bee hoon as much as the pie. We collect the views, with links, on what reviewers say about Don Pie.

Is Chef Don Lim the same Don as in “Don Pie”?

Yes. The “Don” in Don Pie is Chef Don Lim. When people search for “Don’s pie” or “Don chicken pie”, it is his pies they are looking for. Our names guide explains every variant.

Who is DonChef?

DonChef is the name Chicken Pie Kitchen & Don Signature Crab bakes under today. Every pie that leaves the kitchen is a DonChef pie, made to the original recipe that Chef Don Lim created in 1983, so you will see it on the menu and the ordering pages as DonChef’s original recipe and DonChef’s Original Chicken Pie.