Best Italian-Japanese with a touch of French
Kilo
Owners Javier Perez and Sharon Lee have picked up the much-adored Raw Kitchen Bar from its former Bukit Timah Fire Station location, renamed it Kilo and dropped it in a zhushed-up second-storey industrial space along the Kallang river. Windows, usually kept wide open, look out to a view of lush green, while simple fans twirling over mismatched glass and wooden furniture provide a cool breeze. The raw theme flows into what the restaurant calls Japanese- and Italian-inspired comfort food, though we also notice a touch of French. A generous mound of steak tartare is served with a cracked, uncooked quail egg on top; while the surf equivalent is a mouthwatering puck of glistening tuna with nasal-clearing wasabi, sesame and scallion. We especially love the melt-in-your-mouth pork belly served with deep-fried crunchy crackling. Sorbets are made in-house and change daily, though our favourite is the basil. Bonus: relatively reasonable prices – a glass of house wine is $10 – make repeat visits a must. #02-01 Sam Tat Building, 66 Kampong Bugis (6467 3987). Lavender. Tue-Sat 6pm-midnight; Sun 11am-3pm. Main courses $25-$35. AK
Best East Coast American
Luke’s Oyster Bar + Grill
Any establishment that has the chutzpah to put an MFK Fisher recipe on its menu gets our vote. It helps that the creamy, pan-roasted oysters ($21), served in a small cocotte, make for lighter fare than appearances suggest, and conceal plump bivalves (the Beau Soleil from Canada, to be exact) cooked to slightly curled edges; they’re served with a side of sea urchin on toast, sprinkled with smoked paprika. While it’s not the great American prose writer’s recipe in its entirety, it hits all the right emotive notes achieved by the original. Clearly, chef Travis Masiero has done his homework, and judging by the full house of leisure- and business-lunch groups who all seem to know each other, the jungle drums in this town have been busy beating out the buzz. A highlight: the lobster roll. Here, translucent chunks of well-cooked meat directly imported from Boston (Masiero knows a man) are tossed in a mild garlic aioli that lifts the freshness, and served on a home-made, butter-browned hot dog-style sweet bun with shoestring fries tossed generously in Old Bay seasoning. The narrow space, awash with white, mosaic-sized tiles, is fitted with a sunken bar with yellow-lit shelves showcasing the selection of wines (no Italian) and whiskies. Plain dark-wood dining sets for four and the big vase of red Alice in Wonderland roses at the bar hark back to big-city oyster bars. In case you forget this place was named after Masiero’s son, there’s a dessert that requires the childhood pleasure of dipping warm oblong chocolate-chip cookies into a brilliantly robust milkshake ($16). Luke’s a really lucky boy.
20 Gemmill Ln (6221 4468, www.lukes.com.sg). MRT: Chinatown. Mon-Fri noon-late, Sat 4pm-late. Main courses $21-$75. CA
Best hidden Japanese
Maeda
The traditional indigo-coloured yukata (Japanese summer kimono) framed on the wall facing the bar is a particularly appropriate decoration for this equally conventional omakase (‘up to the chef’) and kaiseki (multi-course) restaurant by native Osakan chef Maeda Hiraoki. Behind the heavy wooden front door and top-to-bottom marble façade is an unusually spacious Japanese establishment with the requisite sushi bar and bare-bones furnishing. The food is done traditional-style – clear, fresh and carefully balanced flavours served up in Japanese wares. The seven-set omakase meals are well worth the price – the lowest-priced combination ($90) can include plump slices of hamachi, salmon, toro and scallops; grilled conger eel; and soba in soup. It is expected that the chef will showcase his best in his omakase menu, but the à la carte menu also shines brightly here: the wasabi-flavoured raw octopus ($7) is a delicate mingling of the root’s gentle spark of heat and the chewy texture of the squid. The grilled mackerel fillet ($19) is Maeda’s crowning dish: its skin crisp with an even sprinkling of salt and the just-out-of-the-water flesh as tender as the meat in the cheek of a fish. 467 Joo Chiat Rd (6345 0745). Take a taxi. Tue-Sun 6-11pm. Omakase sets $90-$150; à la carte $5-$65. CA
Best moveable feast
No Menu
Fourth time’s a charm for this family: Osvaldo Forlino, the Michelin-starred chef behind the eponymous Forlino, Il Lido and Osvaldo Ristorante Italiano, has settled into this narrow three-storey shophouse with his wife Patrizia, daughters Serena and Gaia, and niece Camilla. Keen to make this latest space redolent of their homeland, the Piedmontese clan has lined the walls with old Italian Grand Gourmet magazines, lit up the uneven ceiling with chandeliers and framed the back wall that peeks into the kitchen with copper pans. On the second floor, they’ve imported flea-market collectables (from old pots and pans to armoires) from their home in Italy, and grand paintings by a relative to create a private dining space reminiscent of their Piedmont house. The menu is as personable as the space: sturdy strings of pasta handmade by Patrizia and lamb ossobucco ($39), served with a perfectly cooked cheese-laden risotto, falls off the bone at the slightest prod. 23 Boon Tat St (6224 0091, www.nomenusingapore.com). MRT: Raffles Place. Mon-Fri 11am-2.30pm; Mon-Sat 6-10pm. Main courses $30-$40. CA
Best pull
Paradise Dynasty
This regally decorated Paradise Group sibling will catch your eye with its colourful taster basket of eight flavoured xiao long baos, but it’s the noodles that you should really slurp up. Head chef Ge Sheng is a la mian (‘pulled noodles’) specialist from Henan, China and has worked the local, Chinese and Japanese circuits for over twenty years. Now the figure behind the glass façade of this expansive kitchen, he cooks up to 18 types of la mian every day. The la mian braised pork belly in signature pork bone soup ($9.80) is a superb choice – toothsome silky strands in a cloudy broth made by simmering pork bone, pork ribs and chicken for 12 hours – although we prefer the poached marble beef in Sichuan style ($10.80) for its added piquancy. The bases are equally rich – they are, after all, from the same stock. #04-12A ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn (6509 9118, www.paradisegroup.com.sg). MRT: Orchard. Mon-Fri 11am-10pm; Sat, Sun & public holidays 10am-10pm. Noodles $6.80-$13.80. CA
<< Previous 15 | Next 30 >>
TOS RSS feed
TOS Twitter
TOS on Facebook
Print
Email
Yes but it has been there for well over a year. This list only deals with places that started up in the last 12 months.
Posted on Sun 18 Sep 2011 23:43:53
If you're looking for the Best American restaurant on the East Coast of Singapore (which is what I thought was implied), check out Smokey's BBQ in Joo Chiat. They even have a smoked IPA beer on tap.
Posted on Sat 17 Sep 2011 23:39:29