A Dream Called Secret Basement

How a Research Project Became Secret Basement Gelato

People often assume Secret Basement Gelato started with a business plan.

The truth is very different.

In many ways, Secret Basement Gelato started with a machine.

The Machine Came Before The Business

About two years before the shop existed, I came across an Emery Thompson batch freezer.

I was immediately fascinated by it.

This wasn't just another piece of equipment.

This was a machine with history.

Many of the world's most recognised ice cream brands began their journeys using Emery Thompson machines.

What impressed me most was how little the machine had changed over the years.

The design was simple.

The engineering was proven.

And despite all the advances in technology, it continued producing exceptional frozen desserts.

The moment I saw it, I knew I wanted one.

Not because I had a business plan.

Not because I was opening a shop.

But because I loved the idea of making great gelato and ice cream.

So I bought it.

The funny part is that my wife wasn't exactly convinced that buying a commercial ice cream machine was a sensible idea.

At one point, I told her I had sold the machine.

Technically, that wasn't entirely true.

I had sold it to myself.

The machine stayed with me, and so did the dream.

For nearly two years, life moved on.

Work remained busy.

Responsibilities took priority.

But every time I looked at that machine, it reminded me of something I wanted to do one day.

Looking back, that machine became the first real step in what would eventually become Secret Basement Gelato.

From Curiosity To Obsession

At that point, it was no longer just curiosity.

It had become a passion.

A fascination.

And eventually, an obsession.

The more I learned about frozen desserts, the more determined I became to understand them.

I wasn't interested in simply making gelato or ice cream.

I wanted to master it.

I wanted to understand why certain products created excitement and others didn't.

Why some flavours stayed in your memory long after you had finished them.

Why some desserts made people come back again and again.

The deeper I went, the more motivated I became.

What started as an interest quickly became a personal mission.

I knew it was an ambitious goal, but I wanted to build something extraordinary.

Not just great desserts.

Not just great flavours.

But memorable experiences.

I wanted to create products that people would talk about.

I wanted to create flavours that customers would remember.

And ultimately, I wanted Secret Basement Gelato to become an emotional brand.

A brand that people remember long after they have finished their dessert.

A brand that creates happiness.

A brand that creates memories.

At some point, it stopped being a hobby.

It stopped being an experiment.

It became a commitment.

And once that happened, there was no turning back.

Learning From Emery Thompson

One of my biggest teachers was Emery Thompson itself.

I spent countless hours watching videos, studying frozen dessert science, understanding ingredients, learning formulation techniques, and discovering how small changes could completely transform the final product.

At the time, I had no formal training.

I wasn't a trained gelato chef.

I wasn't a pastry chef.

Everything I learned came through research, experimentation, observation, and practice.

The more I learned, the more fascinated I became.

What surprised me most was that making great gelato and ice cream wasn't just cooking.

It was science.

It was engineering.

It was creativity.

It was product design.

Every ingredient had a purpose.

Every percentage mattered.

Every decision influenced the final experience.

Over time, I realised that I could almost visualise a frozen dessert before creating it.

I could imagine the texture.

The richness.

The mouthfeel.

The way the flavour would develop from the first spoonful to the last.

In many ways, I design the experience first and the recipe second.

The First Batch

One of my favourite memories from the early days of Secret Basement Gelato was making my very first batch.

At that time, one of my closest friends happened to be in Singapore.

He was one of the very few people who knew about the project.

Before we could even make gelato and ice cream, we had to figure out how to get the equipment running.

The Emery Thompson machine needed proper electrical connections.

The isolator had to be installed.

We spent time working with an electrician just trying to understand how everything should be connected and whether the machine would even run properly.

There was excitement.

But there was also uncertainty.

We genuinely didn't know what would happen when we switched the machine on.

When it finally came to life, it felt like a major milestone.

At that point, we didn't have all the equipment we eventually acquired.

There was no commercial blender.

There was no sophisticated setup.

We had a simple container, a hand blender, and a collection of ingredients.

That's it.

We measured everything carefully.

Every gram mattered.

The entire process felt like a chemistry experiment.

One thing I am particularly proud of is that I didn't use a ready-made mix.

Even for the very first batch, I created my own formulation.

Emery Thompson had provided many excellent recipes, but most of them were designed around ingredients commonly available in the United States.

I wanted to create something that worked with ingredients available in Singapore.

That meant researching dairy products, understanding substitutions, adjusting formulations, and building a recipe from scratch.

After all that preparation, I finally made my first batch.

Vanilla.

Simple.

Classic.

And unforgettable.

Just when I thought the hard part was over, I discovered a new problem.

I had successfully made my first batch.

But I had nowhere to store it.

The blast chiller wasn't working properly, although I didn't know the reason at the time. I would later discover it was something as simple as a faulty capacitor, but that's a story for another day.

What I did know was that I had just produced what I believed was an incredible batch of vanilla gelato, and I couldn't risk losing it.

So we packed everything into containers, loaded them into bags, hailed a taxi, and rushed across Singapore to my friend's house.

Along the way, we debated whether a normal freezer would work.

Would the texture survive?

Would it harden too much?

Would all our efforts be wasted?

We honestly didn't know.

For the next few weeks, until the blast chiller was repaired, that freezer became our temporary storage facility.

And my friend became our unofficial quality control department.

Every day he would take out some vanilla gelato, usually alongside his coffee, and continue testing it.

By the time he left Singapore, he had probably consumed enough vanilla gelato for a lifetime.

Looking back, it was chaotic.

It was improvised.

And it was completely unprofessional.

But it was also one of my favourite memories from the early days of Secret Basement Gelato.

The Moment I Knew It Could Work

Every founder has a moment when an idea stops being a theory and starts becoming reality.

For me, that moment came when I extracted the very first batch from the Emery Thompson machine.

Leading up to that point, I had no idea what to expect.

I had spent countless hours researching ingredients, understanding formulations, measuring percentages, and building my own recipe.

Research and reality are two very different things.

The truth is that I was prepared for disappointment.

Instead, something completely unexpected happened.

The vanilla gelato was incredible.

Not good.

Not acceptable.

Not promising.

It was genuinely one of the best vanilla gelatos I had ever tasted.

I still remember the surprise.

For the first time, the research had produced a result.

The theory had become a product.

The product had exceeded my expectations.

That was the moment everything changed.

That was the moment I stopped wondering whether this could work.

And started believing that it would.

I remember thinking to myself:

"This is going to work."

Not because somebody told me it would.

Not because I had customers.

Not because I had a business plan.

But because the product itself had proven it.

That first batch of vanilla gelato wasn't just my first product.

It was proof that the dream was possible.

Researching The Industry

As my interest grew, I wanted to understand much more than recipes and machines.

I wanted to understand how the entire industry actually worked.

One of the most valuable experiences during this journey was visiting FHA and spending time speaking with suppliers, distributors, equipment manufacturers, and industry professionals.

I wasn't just looking at products.

I was trying to understand the entire ecosystem behind them.

I wanted to know where ingredients came from.

How they were produced.

How they travelled across the world.

How they reached Singapore.

And ultimately, how they ended up in a gelato shop.

For the first time, I could see the entire supply chain.

From ingredients produced in Italy.

To regional distributors.

To local distributors in Singapore.

To retailers.

And finally to the customer enjoying a scoop of gelato.

Understanding that flow gave me a completely different perspective on the business.

I began understanding not only the products themselves, but also the economics behind them.

The cost structures.

The distribution networks.

The logistics.

And the commercial realities of operating a dessert business.

FHA also gave me the opportunity to study some of the latest equipment available in the industry.

I spent time looking at different production methods, different technologies, and different approaches to making frozen desserts.

Ironically, after seeing all the latest innovations, I found myself becoming even more convinced about the approach I wanted to take.

I still preferred the classic way.

I still believed in understanding ingredients.

I still believed in building recipes from the ground up.

And I still believed that great frozen desserts come from craftsmanship, not shortcuts.

Why A Basement?

One question I get asked frequently is:

"Why did you choose this location?"

The honest answer is that when I started, I didn't know whether any of this would work.

Most people told me it was a bad idea.

A basement location.

Limited foot traffic.

No obvious visibility.

No guarantee of success.

But I saw things differently.

I believed that if the product was good enough and the brand was memorable enough, customers would find us.

I wasn't looking for a location that would instantly guarantee success.

I was looking for a place where I could build something sustainably.

In fact, the space wasn't originally intended to become a gelato shop at all.

It started as a workspace and storage area.

The Emery Thompson machine spent time there long before customers ever walked through the door.

I would come here, sit, work, think, and research.

And sometimes, I would simply look at the machine.

At that stage, I wasn't making gelato.

I wasn't serving customers.

I wasn't running a business.

I was just imagining what could be.

I would sit there looking at the Emery Thompson, hoping that one day I would find the time, the courage, and the opportunity to get it running.

The machine represented something much bigger than equipment.

It represented a dream that hadn't yet become reality.

Over time, the workspace became a project.

The project became a business.

And eventually, the business became Secret Basement Gelato.

Looking back, the basement was probably the perfect place for the journey to begin.

Quietly.

Patiently.

Hidden from the world until it was ready.

The Thirty Days That Changed Everything

Life has a way of changing direction when you least expect it.

In April 2026, I suddenly found myself with something I hadn't had in a very long time.

Time.

For the first time in years, I had the opportunity to step back and ask myself a simple question:

What do I really want to build?

The answer had been sitting in front of me for years.

An Emery Thompson machine.

A dream.

And a project that I had never fully committed to.

So I made a decision.

I was going to give myself a chance to build it.

What followed were some of the most intense weeks of my life.

Many days stretched well beyond sixteen hours.

There were times when I was so exhausted that I slept on the floor of the shop.

There were countless problems to solve.

Equipment to install.

Recipes to formulate.

Suppliers to find.

Systems to build.

Unexpected challenges appeared every day.

But I believed in it.

I believed in the product.

I believed in the vision.

And most importantly, I believed that if I didn't try, I would regret it.

There were moments of uncertainty.

There were moments of doubt.

There were moments when every new day seemed to introduce a new challenge.

But there was one thing that never changed.

The will to succeed despite all odds.

Passion gave me the energy to start.

Conviction gave me the confidence to continue.

But the will to succeed despite all odds is what carried me through those first thirty days.

Secret Basement Gelato was built on more than recipes and machinery.

It was built on passion, conviction, and the will to succeed despite all odds.

The First Customer

There is one moment that I will probably remember for the rest of my life.

The day I got my first customer.

At the time, the shop wasn't fully set up.

I had gelato.

I had spoons.

But I didn't have cups.

If someone ordered a scoop, I served it on a black plate.

Looking back, it sounds unusual.

But when you're building something from scratch, you work with what you have.

One day, a gentleman who owned another shop in the mall happened to walk past.

He looked inside and asked:

"Are you open?"

I replied:

"Yes, we are."

He stepped inside and asked what flavours I had.

At that point, there were only two.

Vanilla and Alphonso Mango.

I recommended the Alphonso Mango.

He agreed and ordered a scoop.

I carefully scooped it onto a black plate and handed it to him with a spoon.

Then I waited.

He took a bite.

And after a few moments, he looked at me and said something I will never forget.

"It's better than Swensen's."

That single sentence made my day.

In that moment, somebody I didn't know had tasted something I had created and genuinely enjoyed it.

After finishing his dessert, he paid for it with two brand-new two-dollar notes.

Crisp.

Clean.

Perfectly unfolded.

For most businesses, it would have been just another transaction.

For me, it wasn't.

It was the first money Secret Basement Gelato had ever earned.

I took those notes home and gave them to my wife and son.

Today, those four dollars are still with my son.

Not because of their value.

But because of what they represent.

They represent the moment a research project became a real business.

A Research Project Disguised As A Gelato Shop

Even today, I often describe Secret Basement Gelato as a research project.

That might sound strange for a dessert business.

But it is the most accurate description.

From the beginning, the goal was never simply to sell gelato and ice cream.

The goal was to understand frozen desserts at a deeper level.

To experiment.

To learn.

To improve.

To create products that didn't already exist.

Every flavour teaches me something.

Every batch teaches me something.

Every customer teaches me something.

I don't see recipes as finished.

I see them as evolving.

Every product can become better.

Every flavour can be improved.

Every idea can be refined.

The Research Continues

Today, Secret Basement Gelato is very different from where it started.

When I first opened, there were only a handful of flavours.

Today, I have developed and tested more than fifty flavours.

At any point in time, customers will typically find around sixteen to seventeen flavours in the shop.

But what makes me most proud isn't the number of flavours.

It's the standard I hold myself to.

Many dessert brands become famous for one or two signature products.

That has never been my vision.

I don't want customers to visit Secret Basement Gelato because of a single flavour.

I want them to trust the entire menu.

I want someone walking into the shop to feel confident that whichever flavour they choose, it will be memorable.

That is why I spend so much time refining recipes.

Every flavour is tested.

Every flavour is evaluated.

Every flavour is improved.

And every flavour must earn its place in the display cabinet.

The standards I set for myself are extremely high.

I know what great gelato should taste like.

I know when a product is not yet where it needs to be.

And I know when something can be improved.

Most importantly, I listen carefully to customers.

Customer feedback is invaluable.

Every comment.

Every suggestion.

Every observation.

It helps me understand whether I am moving in the right direction.

More often than not, the customer is right.

Their feedback helps validate my thinking, challenge my assumptions, and guide the decisions I make as I continue developing products.

One thing that customers often ask is whether Secret Basement makes gelato or ice cream.

The answer is both.

Over time, I realized that I wasn't trying to create a traditional gelato, nor was I trying to create a traditional ice cream.

I wanted something that combined the best qualities of both.

The density, flavour intensity, and richness of gelato.

The creaminess, indulgence, and satisfaction of great ice cream.

What we serve today is the result of that philosophy.

A frozen dessert that sits somewhere between gelato and ice cream, designed around the experience I want customers to have.

That is why I still describe Secret Basement Gelato as a research project.

The research never really ends.

Every customer teaches me something.

Every batch teaches me something.

Every flavour teaches me something.

When a flavour consistently delights customers, performs exactly as intended, and represents everything I want Secret Basement Gelato to stand for, I stop changing it.

Until then, I continue learning.

I continue refining.

I continue experimenting.

Because Secret Basement Gelato was never built around making just one great flavour.

It was built around the pursuit of making every flavour memorable.