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Our Story

One family, one recipe, a hundred years.

From a push cart in 1920s Kampong Glam to a beloved kitchen on North Bridge Road, the story of Sabar Menanti is a story of patience, family, and the food of West Sumatra.

Sabar Menanti heritage shopfront, Kandahar Street Kampong Glam · since 1920
Minangkabau roots

The food of West Sumatra.

Nasi padang comes from the Minangkabau people of Padang, West Sumatra, a cuisine of slow-cooked rendang, fiery sambals, and rich coconut curries, all served over rice. Haji Marlian carried those recipes across the sea, and his family has guarded them ever since.

Little has changed by design. The same dishes, cooked the same way, from the kitchens and recipes of the mothers and grandmothers before them, the finest renditions of heritage delicacies, from one generation to the next.

The timeline

A century, year by year

1920s

A push cart and a promise

Haji Marlian Athar and Hajjah Rosmah Mailu arrive in Singapore and sell nasi padang from a push cart in Kampong Glam. A sailor friend gifts them a signboard reading “Sabar Menanti”, Bahasa Indonesia for “wait patiently.” The name would prove prophetic.

1932

From cart to shophouse

The business blossoms into a small restaurant at the corner of Bussorah Street, where the family would run the nasi padang trade for the next forty years.

1960s & 70s

The famous queue

Sabar Menanti becomes a Kampong Glam institution. You could spot it from down the street by the line of customers waiting patiently for their plate.

1980s

The next generation

Founders Haji Marlian and Hajjah Rosmah pass on. Their children, Yusmal, Rizal, Tarmizi, Maryulis and Zubaidah, carry the recipes and the name forward.

1994

Sabar Menanti 2

Maryulis strikes out on her own, opening Sabar Menanti at 747 North Bridge Road and building a following of her own over the next 26 years.

2022

Today, on North Bridge Road

The kitchen moves a few doors down to 737 North Bridge Road. Maryulis's son, Iszahar Tambunan, now oversees the business, the fourth generation to stir the rendang.

“The recipes never left the family, and they never will.”

Iszahar Tambunan · fourth generation

Taste a hundred years of patience.

Come find us in Kampong Glam, or explore what's on the counter today.

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