Maximum Simplicity

It’s been a while since we last spoke, so please introduce yourself again!
I’m Mike, and I was the co-owner of Anteiku Studios, but then I quit because I got burnt out. Recently, I started Rocks Cafe by Anteiku Studios, so now my partner AJ is handling Anteiku while I run Rocks Cafe.

Wow, that’s a big change!
Yeah, back when we last spoke, everything was smaller scale and things weren’t as certain for us. At that point, it was all very hehe haha, but nowadays, it’s serious business. We’re standing on business right now! (laughs)

Did you ever expect this kind of growth when you first started Anteiku Studios?
At the start, not really, but midway through, around our second year, I could see the potential and vision for growth, which is why I pursued it. Whenever our lease ended, we would move somewhere bigger, which is how I started to understand that were actually going somewhere. Before that, it was always kind of grey.

What made you want to start up Rocks Cafe, given that running Anteiku already made you feel burnt out?
I guess it wasn’t that I wanted to leave Anteiku, but that I wanted to do something more. It came to a point where Anteiku had become very stagnant for me, like we kind of reached endgame. We started from a small room in Chinatown, in an ulu (quiet) building, then it became a bigger room, then we moved to Pink House in Arab Street, and now we’re at Haji Lane. I think this was the end goal for most of us, so when it came to that, there was nothing else I wanted to achieve with Anteiku, so I quit. At the time, I had also just ORD-ed, and that’s when AJ and I started working more on Anteiku. I was working two days a week, while she was doing three days a week. I decided we had to branch our in some way, so I thought to open a cafe.

Have you always been interested in food and coffee?
Yeah, I always have been. I’ve liked cooking since I was a kid, and I’ve been working in F&B since I was young. When I was 14, I worked at Texas Chicken, then I did banquets for a few years, and then also worked at a cafe for a while. This was all before Anteiku, and then after Anteiku, I realised the end goal for me was always to open a cafe, and since I like both cooking and coffee, I started a place that offered both.

With all of these new F&B outlets and cafes popping up, what is it that makes Rocks Cafe unique?
I think it’s a very community-driven space. That’s one thing that sets us apart I guess. We already have a community behind this venture, which is Anteiku, and this is what we wanted to integrate into our cafe, since they’re our target demographic as well. Similar to what AJ shared about Anteiku, we wanted to create a safe space for people who don’t find comfort in their own skin or community.

We don’t really care about a lot of things here—we’re professionally unprofessional, you get what I’m saying? (laughs) Like with our interior, we did everything ourselves—the graffiti and the posters on the wall. People tend to pump in so much money and effort into making things look minimalistic, and I find that crazy! That people spend so much money to make things look plain white. I think that’s quite stupid, in my opinion. In any case, I think our interior also shows who we are and our characters a lot more. We’re putting things up that we like, that represent ourselves, that we can connect with, so that other people who share these interests can hopefully connect with them and us as well.

That makes sense! Because at the end of the day, who you are bleeds into everything that you do, so why not just create a space that’s uniquely you? On that note, what dish or drink on the menu would you say describes you best?
Our burrata caprese pizza! That’s our specialty. I saw a video on someone making a caprese salad, and I thought that I could make it on a pizza. I was also looking for vegan options to add to our menu as well, so I thought we could do a salad pizza. What we do is just cook the pizza baked, meaning with no sauce on top, then when it comes out of the oven as a piece of bread, we top it off with pesto, arugula, and cherry tomatoes. Nowadays, I’ve been torching the ingredients to give them a nice char. After that, I’ll top it off with burrata, olive oil, honey, and chill powder, then torch it all again once more so that the cheese can melt and the honey can come together better with the child. It tastes more like a refreshing pizza, with all the flavours perfectly balanced.

Stop, we’re getting so hungry! Final question: what are your personal goals for the year?
To just survive (laughs). I went in blind into this, but I guess at the end of the day, we started all of this to get out of the rat race, so we’re not really trying to chase money or that bag. We’re just trying to make a living. If that works, then that’s enough for me. I grew up very poor, so I guess the simple things matter more to me. I’ll be fine and happy just surviving here, as long as I get to do what I want.

Mike was previously seen here.