How Singapore Restaurants Use AI Without Replacing the Human Touch

The useful AI in a restaurant may be the system customers never see. At two Singapore food businesses, the focus is on decisions and paperwork behind the service: fitting reservations around likely table turnover at Fico, and keeping purchase orders from slipping through at HarriAnns.24

Fico: finding room for another reservation

The Lo & Behold Group had been cautious about overbooking Fico, its restaurant at East Coast Park, because extra reservations could mean long waits. In May, a project team used Anthropic’s Claude Code to build a tool that examines historical reservations, dining durations and guest habits. Its purpose is to identify periods when Fico can accept more bookings without simply assuming every table will turn over on time.23

The Straits Times reported that Fico’s weekend revenue rose 2% in the first month of the strategy.3 That is an early reported result, not proof that waiting times fell or that the same gain will continue.

HarriAnns: catching orders before production starts

HarriAnns faced a different problem. In March 2025, a hotel chef called chief executive Alan Tan about an order for 2,000 kueh that had been missed. Singapore consultancy Knovel Engineering began developing an AI-enabled order platform for the business around July 2025. The reported system processes purchase orders arriving by email and tallies the quantities needed.24

For a supplier preparing fresh food for customers, the appeal is straightforward: make incoming orders easier to track before they become a last-minute problem. Knovel Engineering carries a statement attributed to HarriAnns’ chief executive saying its solution reduced tabulation time, though the provided reporting does not quantify that reduction.40

What the examples do—and do not—show

Inventory management and staff rostering are also plausible back-office uses of AI, but the documented examples here concern reservations and order processing.24 Both approaches aim to take repetitive planning work out of employees’ hands so they can concentrate on service. Whether they have measurably increased time spent with customers remains unestablished in the available reporting. The clearest lesson is narrower: AI can address a specific operational bottleneck without being the face of hospitality.234