editorial

A renowned barbecue restaurant has created a meaty collection of recipes and stories.
<figure id="attachment_139921" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-139921" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-139921 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Burnt-Ends-1.jpg" alt="Dave Pynt at Burnt Ends; Burnt Ends book." width="1200" height="894" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Burnt-Ends-1.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Burnt-Ends-1-300x224.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Burnt-Ends-1-1024x763.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Burnt-Ends-1-768x572.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-139921" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Dave Pynt at Burnt Ends; his new book. (Photos: Anders Jörgensen/Burnt Ends)</figcaption></figure>
Vegans, look away. Dave Pynt, the brawny Perth-born, Singapore-based chef and owner of barbecue hot spot Burnt Ends, has published his first cookbook.
“The timing was right,” says Pynt, whose Michelin-starred restaurant in the leafy Dempsey Hill neighborhood is currently ranked 15th on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants. “I figured that after more than 10 years, we had enough to talk about to make an interesting book — enough recipes and plenty of cool techniques to discuss.”
In all, Pynt has assembled 70 recipes, though, really, to call <a href="https://burntends.com.sg/?DestinAsian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Burnt Ends</a> a cookbook doesn’t do justice to the 368-page door stopper. Lavishly illustrated with almost the same number of images and incorporating an absorbing graphic novella of the chef’s culinary and personal journey, this is a project that has been two years in the making, involving a global team of creative talent including Swedish photographer Per-Anders Jörgensen, Australian food journalist Max Veenhuyzen, Ukrainian illustrator Ien Levin, and New York–based comic artist Ryan Inzana. “And our printers in Shenzhen,” Pynt adds.
The result is a kitchen reference book that is at once incredibly informative (who knew there are 16 ways to cook meat?), heartfelt (Pynt’s courtship of his wife and early years in the kitchen), and unexpectedly profane. “What is modern BBQ?” Pynt asks right off the bat. “Whatever the f*** I want it to be.”
<figure id="attachment_139924" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-139924" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-139924 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Burnt-Ends-2-1.jpg" alt="Bone marrow curry. " width="1200" height="800" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-139924" class="wp-caption-text">Bone marrow curry. (Photo: Anders Jörgensen/Burnt Ends)</figcaption></figure>
Not that he freestyles through his recipes. Pynt is too disciplined a chef for that. “The biggest misconception about barbecuing is that it is easy and takes no skill,” he says.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Burnt Ends is that it includes vegetarian recipes, a reflection that Pynt’s plant-based dishes are some of the restaurant’s most memorable gastronomic moments. A lot of people come for the meat or seafood, he says, and “they leave talking about the veggie dishes including the eggplant, leek, and maitake!”
For die-hard fans, Pynt is releasing a limited edition of 300 copies — their covers are cold-smoked over iron bark — each weighing nearly seven kilos and presented in a box created by the interior designer Emma Maxwell, who also designed the restaurant.
Start the fire, as they say.
Where to Buy the Book
Burnt Ends is available from November and can be ordered at <a href="https://burntends.com.sg/?DestinAsian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">burntends.com.sg</a>.
This article originally appeared in the <a href="https://subscription.destinasian.com/">October/November 2024</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Burn Notice”).

Burnt Ends Releases Its Own Cookbook