"Since 1983" refers to the year Chef Don Lim, founder of Don Pie and co-founder of our kitchen, began developing his chicken pie recipe, by his own account, while baking for the Hewlett-Packard staff cafeteria. It is the age of the recipe, not of a shop: his first shop opened at Far East Square in 2000. It does not claim that 1983 was the first chicken pie in Singapore.
What does “Singapore’s original Chicken Pie, since 1983” mean?
“Singapore’s original Chicken Pie, since 1983” is our own tagline. It is printed at the top of the pie section of our menu. It means that DonChef’s Original Chicken Pie is made to the recipe of Chef Don Lim, and that he dates the start of that recipe to 1983. The whole lineage is told in the Original Don story.
The word “original” here is about lineage. It says that this pie is the original of Chef Don’s pie, from his own kitchen. It is not a claim that our pie was the first chicken pie ever sold in Singapore. It was not, and we explain why in Who made Singapore’s first chicken pie?
What happened in 1983?
In 1983, by Chef Don’s own account, he was baking pastries for the staff cafeteria at Hewlett-Packard, in what he calls the HP days at Depot Road. That is where he created his chicken pie recipe. Our product notes describe it as “constantly developed and improved upon since 1983”.
A food writer who told his story in 2023 reported that he spent many years at HP before opening his own shop. That fits the timeline: the recipe had years of daily cafeteria service behind it before it reached a shop counter in 2000.
Why is the date the recipe and not the shop?
The date is the recipe’s because the recipe is what we are selling. Chef Don’s first shop, DON: Your Personal Pie Club, opened at Far East Square in 2000 (the pie club website says 2001). If our tagline said “since 2000”, it would describe a shop. Shops open, move and close. Our shops certainly have. The recipe is the thing that has stayed with Chef Don through all of it.
Why do some of your pages say “42 years in the making”?
Some of our own pages describe the recipe as “42 years in the making”, and older ones said 41, or 39 in 2022. That is the same claim counted from 1983 in different years, so the number grows each year. On this site we use the fixed date, “since 1983”, because a fixed date does not go out of date.
Can “since 1983” be verified?
Partly, and we would rather tell you exactly which part.
What we can show: independent food bloggers wrote about Chef Don’s pies at Far East Square and China Square in 2006 and 2008, describing the egg, the vegetables and the flaky crust that we still bake. Food writers have followed his cooking since, through Toa Payoh and to Tyrwhitt Road. The recipe has a documented public life of nearly twenty years in other people’s words.
What we cannot show: a document from 1983 itself. Staff cafeteria recipes in the early 1980s were not written up by food bloggers. The 1983 date comes from Chef Don’s own account, and we present it as that.
We think that is the honest way to carry a heritage date. The claim is the cook’s own, it is consistent with everything else on the record, and it is labelled for what it is.
How should you read any “since” date on a food brand?
Any “since” date on a food brand is worth three quick questions. We ask them of ourselves first.
- What is being dated? A recipe, a shop, a family business or a company? Each is a different claim.
- Who says so? The business itself, or someone independent? Both can be true, but they are different kinds of evidence.
- Is there a continuous thread? Can you follow the same cook, recipe or business from that date to today without a gap that the story skips over?
For our tagline, the answers are: the recipe; Chef Don himself, supported by independent coverage from 2006 onwards; and yes, with the gaps named openly on our timeline, including the years after the brand sale when he did not sell pies. For the same years seen from outside the kitchen, donpies.com keeps a dated history of the brand from 1983 to 2026.
What “since 1983” does not claim
“Since 1983” does not claim that the recipe has never changed. It has been refined over the years, which is what cooks do. It does not claim that the pie was first sold in 1983. And it does not say anything about any other business or name. Our wider standard is set out in what “original” means for the Don pie. It is a date attached to a recipe and a cook, and that is all we ask it to carry.
| The tagline says | It means | It does not mean |
|---|---|---|
| Original | The original of Chef Don’s pie, from his kitchen | The first chicken pie in Singapore |
| Chicken Pie | Our Original Chicken Pie recipe | Every pie on our menu |
| Since 1983 | The year Chef Don began the recipe, by his account | The year a shop opened |
Sources and how we checked
- Chicken Pie Kitchen & Don Signature Crab, printed menu, February 2026 version. Carries the tagline Singapore's original Chicken Pie, since 1983
- Chicken Pie Kitchen & Don Signature Crab, Original Chicken Pie product page and “Chef Don Lim's original pies” page (chickenpie.sg)
- For the Love of Food blog, October 2008
- ieatishootipost, April 2023. Reports Chef Don's long years at HP. A disclosed partnership post
