Success Doesn’t Need to Get Fancy: A conversation with Chef / Founder Dave Pynt, Burnt Ends
From an East London pop-up that ran out of food on opening night to one of Singapore’s most recognisable Michelin starred restaurants, Burnt Ends has grown without losing the informality that made people love it in the first place.
The Knife caught up with chef and founder Dave Pynt to talk signature dishes, knowing when not to change things, the launch of People People Brewing Co., taking Burnt Ends to the Maldives, and why London remains firmly on his radar.
Burnt Ends began as a pop-up in East London. Was there a point when you realised you were onto something bigger than you originally expected?
We dived straight in and really had no idea what we were expecting. The guys threw a party on opening night and I remember running out of food halfway through. I went into the cool room thinking, "What are we going to cook?" and we just pieced some stuff together.
People seemed to really enjoy the food, the space and the vibe. Each week went from strength to strength. Towards the end of the pop-up in East London, things were feeling really good and we started thinking, "Alright, what’s next?"
Running out of food is terrifying because you’re letting people down who have come and are still hungry, but at the same time, you’ve utilised 100% of your food. You think: things are probably going to be alright.
Burnt Ends has always had a laid-back, informal approach. Has protecting that become harder as the accolades and expectations have grown?
It’s more of a mental challenge than anything else. When we moved into the new premises, it was this big, shiny new building with heaps of space, and people – including staff – were saying, "You’re going to push for two stars." And I was just thinking: what for?
That’s not who we are, what we do or why people like us. People don’t like us because we’re wearing suits, hovering around tables and giving overindulgent explanations of every dish. They like it because it’s simple, informal and casual. You can order what you want, we don’t faff too much and people have a good time.
It’s really about saying no when people around me want to make things fancier, and making sure I don’t get carried away either.
After more than a decade, how do you know when something needs to evolve and when it’s better left alone?
If it’s not broken, why are you trying to change it? We were literally talking about a dish at one of our other outlets recently. It was the number-one seller by volume and the number-one seller by revenue, and we were discussing taking it off and replacing it with a newer version. I just thought: that makes no sense. People like it.
Chefs get into their own heads. They think, "People love this dish, so let’s take it off and do something else." But there are probably five other dishes you should replace first.
Some regulars will always ask what’s new, but 99% of diners have never had the old stuff. They’ve seen it, they want it, and changing too much is risky.
Burnt Ends has some famous signature dishes. Is having those signatures flattering or creatively restrictive?
It’s both. We’ve got the pulled pork sanger, which has been on forever and is one of the things people talk about most. There’s this feeling of, "I’ve finally made it, I’ve got a signature dish people talk about…" and it’s a fucking burger. You work your arse off your whole life and people love you for a burger.
But that’s listening to the customer. We cook it, prepare it and serve it every day, so naturally we should be sick of it. Put yourself in the guest’s shoes. They might have flown halfway around the world after seeing it on somebody’s feed, and this is their first and only meal here. That’s what they want.
Creatively, you always want to do something new. From a business and guest point of view, you’ve got to listen.
What would the younger Dave Pynt find most surprising about the way you and the Burnt Ends kitchen operate today?
The lack of drinking! More seriously, the kitchen is so much faster-paced and more efficient now. I don’t work on the grills like I used to, but I watch what my guys do night after night and think, "Holy fuck, you guys are weapons."
I could jump in and cook a really good steak, but I couldn’t do 40 of them at that pace. I’d need to lie down afterwards.
When we started, I’d have a gin and tonic or a Negroni from just before service all the way through to the end of the night. Now the pace of the kitchen is relentless.
The heart and soul are still the same, but we’ve grown from four or five people in the kitchen to 13 or 14 just on service. It’s a very different operation.
People People Brewing Co. has now been open for a few months. What has surprised you most about how people are using the space?
We’re in a funny part of town at Resorts World, and there was a stigma that it was far away and there was nothing good down there.
Over the first three months, we’ve introduced consistent programming. We’ve got quiz nights on Mondays, pizza nights on Wednesdays, a band on Fridays, then DJs and a magician on Saturdays. People are starting to understand what we’re doing and use it as somewhere to socialise, gather, have fun and do something that’s actually quite normal in many other parts of the world, but isn’t readily available in places like Singapore.
We also finally got our licence to brew beer on-site about four weeks ago [at the time of interview], which has been a game changer. I’ve learned so much just talking to the guys while they’re brewing, sending beer to tank and pouring it out. There’s a lot of excitement around creating things.
Has building a brewery changed the way you think about food and menu development?
Completely. You know how you get a tasting paddle of beers? We’ve got a flight of five beers at the moment. Coming from a restaurant background, one thing we thought was missing was the food. You’re almost always drinking beer with food, so what are the pairings going to be?
Initially, the guys brought out some pretty standard things from the kitchen and said, "This goes with this." Then you taste them together and realise they actually don’t complement each other. Normally you think about matching beer with food. We’re trying to go the other way and match the food to the beer. You want to have a snack, take a drink of the beer and think, "Fuck, that’s good."
We’re also looking at spent grains and different flavours from the brewing process and trying to push things in different directions. Creatively, it’s a lot of fun.
You’re also experimenting with ageing beer. What’s behind that?
We do a lot of dry-aged beef at Burnt Ends, and there’s a process in beer-making called lagering, where beers can be held and aged for extended periods.
A lot of larger companies don’t necessarily want to do that for very long because it becomes expensive. If a beer is sitting in a tank for three months, you can’t use that tank for another beer.
So we’re running an experiment. We’re going to taste one beer at 60 days, 90 days, 120 days, 160 days and 180 days.
Part of it is curiosity – taking it all the way to 180 days – but we also want to find where the sweet spot is for our lager and premium beer. That whole tasting process is really exciting to me.
People People can accommodate hundreds of guests. Does operating at that scale mean surrendering some of the control you have at Burnt Ends?
One hundred per cent. We’re surrendering a lot of control and taking out some of those intimate touchpoints because at that volume, you just can’t provide the same level of service you feel at Burnt Ends.
But we still want the experience to be seamless. You can order online, but there are servers coming to the table asking if they can top you up, telling you about specials and having some engagement.
It’s a dialled-back version of what we do. We hit the points where we need to make people feel welcome, but otherwise we want you to relax, enjoy your time, not be hassled, and have everything work seamlessly around you.
As Burnt Ends Hospitality Group expands, what is the one thing you’ll never dilute?
Barbecue. If we’re putting our name around something, it has to be wood-fired barbecue. If it’s not, why are we doing it? It’s not us.
Even when we opened the bakery, we created wood-fired sourdough and built a wood-fired oven to bake it. If we didn’t do that at a minimum, what the fuck are we doing? You’re just any other bakery in the world with no integrity behind it.
The Ledge takes that Burnt Ends DNA to the Maldives. How do you adapt the concept to somewhere so different without simply copying the formula?
It felt obvious that if we took Burnt Ends exactly as it was and dropped it onto a beach in the Maldives, people would walk in and think, "What the fuck am I doing here?"
That’s why we couldn’t give it the same name. The Ledge is more beach-shack chic. It’s very laid-back, which is still Burnt Ends. It’s casual, easy and still à la carte, but the menu is more seafood-biased and we use a lot of local seafood. You walk in and feel like you’re at a beach barbecue.
We still have some crossover dishes because people know it’s us and expect certain things. The ovens and grills are the same, and the way we cook, serve and engage is the same. We’ve essentially changed the shell we’re in, the uniforms and part of the menu to suit the environment. It’s still very recognisably Burnt Ends in style.
Your 2024 book tells the Burnt Ends story as much as it shares recipes. Did writing it change how you viewed what you’d built?
One hundred per cent. I never really stop to think about what we’ve built. The history is great, but normally we’re asking: where are we going? What do we need to do now?
Putting it onto paper made us stop and think about the key things that make Burnt Ends what it is. There were moments where I thought, "I didn’t realise we thought like that," or "I didn’t realise this was how we engaged with communities, suppliers or the people around us."
Working with the writers, designers and photographers forced us to articulate those things. The same happened with the cooking techniques. I know we cook in lots of different ways, but I’d never necessarily stopped and said, "This is that technique, this is why you use it and this is what it does to the protein."
The book made us explain the who, how, what, when and why. It was also a lot more work than I expected! We definitely didn’t slow down while making it.
Finally, could Burnt Ends ever come back to London, and what else do you still want to explore?
London is always on the cards. My wife is British, and we end up down in Brighton almost every summer and every second Christmas. We’ve got lots of family and friends in the UK, and I have very fond memories of London.
If the right thing came along, one hundred per cent. It’s one of the great food cities in the world. It’s constantly evolving and fast-paced, and there’s so much on offer. Getting a chance to come back would be awesome.
Beyond venues, I think there’s an opportunity around filming and content. When we built the Burnt Ends private room, we actually put rails in the roof so we could aim cameras. I thought we’d do much more filming. I still think it’s a direction we should explore because there’s a huge platform there. I’m just not very good at it and I’m not overly excited by it yet – it’s been about five years already and I still haven’t got there!
But if the timing is right and everything aligns, you might see us take a more active role in that space rather than just my five-second handheld clips.
