Bouillabaisse at Claudine in Singapore. The Lion City has many new food and drink openings, from French home cooking to Japanese fine dining.Whether for business or pleasure, there's an inevitable question that everyone asks when travelling to Singapore: where are we going to eat first?
At this neighbourhood French restaurant in a 1930s chapel in the verdant restaurant enclave of Dempsey Hill, executive chef Julien Mercier and chef de cuisine Loïc Portalier craft flawless renditions of classics from their homeland. The restaurant's executive chef, Saurabh Udinia, earned his stripes at Indian Accent, a lauded New Delhi restaurant with inventive takes on legendary dishes.
This was followed by golden pomfret marinated in a fragrant red spice paste called recheado, which is Portuguese for "stuffed" and comes from the country's former colony in Goa in western India. The restaurant is headed by celebrated American chef Nancy Silverton, who is also responsible for Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles – a one-Michelin-star temple to handmade pastas and knockout pizzas.
At Osteria Mozza, this dish, once considered cucina povera , was elevated with a rich, dark, sticky duck ragu. Incidentally, one special pasta on the menu features Dungeness crab and saffron, inspired by Silverton's love of crab dishes in Singapore.It's surprising that Singapore never had a restaurant by Japanese celebrity chef Nobu Matsuhisa until now.