10 Haute Cuisine Hotspots in Singapore

by Spence Cooper on 13/07/09 at 2:44 pm

Singapore is an aviation hub for the Southeast Asian region. Singapore’s Changi Airport has a network of 81 airlines connecting Singapore to 185 cities in 58 countries. Shttp://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/04Mq1IlfQ459H/75×75.jpgingaporean cuisine is a confluence of Chinese, Indian, Malay and Tamil cuisine. Local foods consist of chicken rice and satay, and a wide variety of seafood including oysters, clams, and squid. Popular local dishes include bak chor mee, mee pok, sambal stingray, laksa, nasi lemak, chili crab and satay.

Singapore’s top-end dining has flourished recently. Hotels have long been the hub of social activity in Singapore, and capture most diners’ attention, but over and above the high-end dining at luxury hotel restaurants, posh independent restaurants have exploded on the food court scene as Rita Erlich with theage learned when she toured the new food trenches in Singapore.

“The number of independent restaurants that is, those not within a hotel is growing, says Erlich. St Pierre, run by Emmanuel Stroobant, a Belgian-born chef who worked in Australia, has maintained its status as funky modern French.

“There’s the Italian restaurant, Oso, where fresh mozzarella is air-freighted daily and where rare Italian cheeses have pride of place. Yantra is the first upmarket and glamorous Indian restaurant. And where is Singaporean food in all of this? Ignatius Chan believes his restaurant, Iggy’s, is one of the faces of Singaporean food.

“Because all food is imported, anything is possible,” he says. Because Singapore is a migrant society, he sees all food style

s as Singaporean. When he opened Iggy’s four years ago, he says, he planned “a restaurant from the perspective of a Singaporean”.

“The latest hot spot is Tanglin Village at Dempsey Road,” says Erlich “where the old army barracks site has been redeveloped as a gastronomic precinct. The Tippling Club is here, run by young Australians, serving ultra-modern food matched to cocktails. Au Petit Salut, one of the more established French restaurants, has moved here. And Culina and Jones the Grocer, both upmarket food provedores, are here, too. Culina serves lunch, afternoon tea and tapas daily and breakfast at weekends. It imports food from Paris, Sydney and Melbourne: French cheeses, Australian meat, oysters from France and Australia, Tetsuya’s smoked salmon and Herbies spices from Sydney.

“Still hankering for Singapore chilli crab? Jumbo Group has seven locations. Take some friends, as the best set menus are for 10 people.”

RECOMMENDED HOT SPOTS

Oso, 46 Bukit Pasoh Road. Phone +65 6327 8378.

St Pierre, 3 Magazine Road, Central Mall. Phone +65 6438 0887.

Yantra, 163 Tanglin Road. Phone +65 6836 3088.

Tippling Club, 8D Dempsey Road. Phone +65 6475 2217.

Flutes at the Fort, Fort Canning Park. Phone +65 6338 8770.

Au Petit Salut, 40C Harding Road. Phone +65 6475 1976.

Mezza9/Straits Kitchen, Grand Hyatt, 10 Scotts Road. Phone +65 6738 1234.

Jaan, 2 Stamford Road, Level 70 Equinox Complex, Swissotel the Stamford. Phone +65 6431 6156.

Iggy’s, Level 3, Cuscaden Road. Phone +65 6732 2234.

Brasserie Les Saveurs, St Regis, 29 Tanglin Road. Phone +65 6506 6888.