With brand new dining concepts and a series of limited-time menus to sample, February is shaping up to be an exciting month on the food front. From Cloudstreet and Penfolds comes a seven-course chef’s table tasting menu accompanied by seven outstanding wines handpicked from the winemaker’s Australia and France collection. Japanese kappo-style restaurant Esora unveils an exquisite winter menu, while Art di Daniele Sperindio offers Italian dining at its finest. For those seeking something more experimental, head to Ghostwriter. An F&B incubator space for chefs and aspiring restaurant owners, it houses a new pop-up every month—which means there will always be something new to sample.
Esora showcases a new winter menu
Our first time to Esora, a Japanese kappo-style restaurant with one Michelin star, was a month ago to try their new winter menu under head chef Takeshi Araki. The experience was refined in various ways—from the subtle nuances in flavour, to the unhurried yet prompt service of dishes, to the immaculate plating by Araki and his team. Araki’s thoughtful menu harks back to his memories of winter in Hiroshima, where he would “hibernate” in the comfort of home and spend the season with his family. As the first frost appears in Japan, winter food makes a comeback on dining tables all around the country. Root vegetables, snow crabs, and sea urchins are some comforting flavours in sub-zero temperatures, alongside hotpots, stews, oden, sukiyaki and shabu shabu.
A nutritious cup of warm konbu dashi starts off your meal—Araki uses Kyoto burdock here, which is grilled and dehydrated before it is simmered in a konbu. Esora’s signature amuse bouche, the Foie Gras Monaka, appears next, where a luxurious Maison Mitteault foie gras torchon is delicately paired with five citrus fruits. The fruity acidity cuts through the richness of the foie gras in a crunchy, moreish bite. Look forward to a heartier version of the renowned Chicken Wings, which is deeply satisfying, stuffed with smoked Hokkaido mashed potatotes and dusted with black winter truffles. Other sublime dishes include the Omi Wagyu, grilled, sliced and served with a sukiyaki-inspired egg sauce, and the Donabe, featuring the sweet, fresh meat of snow crabs atop premium koshihikari rice cooked in a crab stock of konbu dashi, crab shell, carrots, celery and onions. Tea pairings are a rare treat; when offered, they must be ordered—Esora’s selections are winners to fully appreciate the flavours in Araki’s dishes.
Esora, 15 Mohamed Sultan Rd, Singapore 238964
Art di Daniele Sperindio presents Italian cuisine at its best
Dining at Art di Daniele Sperindio, which overlooks the gorgeous green Padang, is a joyous event. Presenting Italian food at its finest—perfectly al dente taglierini, fresh king crab, Sardinian seabass—each course is as uplifting as the next and is a well-balanced lesson in texture. Chef-owner Daniele Sperindio, a proud Ligurian with years of global experience, says the restaurant is “a space where I emotionally connect with my guests, telling tales of my land and experiences, expressed through food, from an Italian point of view”.
Standout dishes include the Cappon Magro, a refreshing combination of Sri Lankan and Alaskan king crab, Siberian sturgeon caviar, chamomile and pear. It whets our appetites for the rest of the courses to come, which proved to be a journey of sophisticated yet familial flavours. Winter is Coming, a honeyed quail glazed and crusted with pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and finished with a heady aged celeriac jus, is gloriously crisp and succulent.
La Superba took our breath away the second it arrived at our table. A pasta course which pays homage to the chef’s hospitality, the first part is a beautiful coil of taglierini made with 32 yolks for every kilogram of flour and not a drop of water. It is served in a delectable infusion of clams and stock fish, alongside parsley butter, taggiasche olive puree and yellowfin tuna bottarga. The second part is a giradito, a long flat noodle stuffed with a ragout made with aged Challans duck, a paste of aromatic herbs and a jellified boscaiola consommé. The third and final component is a warm slice of artisanal Ligurian focaccia, served with an assembly of traditional sauces, a braised meat Tocco, basil pesto and parmigiano. In Sperindio’s words, mopping up sauces with fresh bread is an Italian pastime—we might make it ours, too.
Art di Daniele Sperindio, 1 St Andrew’s Road, 06-02 National Gallery, 178957
Experimental culinary incubator Ghostwriter opens its doors
Every visit to Ghostwriter should bring something new to discover. A unique culinary concept from the team behind Sago House and Low Tide, the incubator space invites chefs and aspiring restaurant owners to test new concepts or menus with the public through three-week to month-long pop-ups. Nestled amidst the vibrant Ann Siang Hill, the intimate 10-seater undergoes transformations month after month at the hands of its rotating residents. When we visited the space in January, it was decked out like a Japanese izakaya and home to dining concept Guerilla. Created by Son Pham and June Baek—the former recognised as the chef-owner of Sonny’s Pizza and the latter best known for her experience in world-renowned bars such as Seoul’s Bar Cham and Singapore’s MO Bar—the dishes put an elevated spin on familiar Asian flavours while still retaining a distinct sense of homeliness.
Marinated raw red snapper aged for three days came doused in refreshing clam jus, while diced octopus and puffed rice added delightful texture to a velvety daikon jook—served with delicious homemade XO sauce on the side. Korean flavours shone in the grilled ssam, which consisted of tender Australian A2 short ribs that you can assemble with lettuce, perilla and shiso leaves—along with a touch of jeotgal, a spicy sauce created using fermented seafood. Meanwhile, perfectly paired tipples made creative use of common ingredients in Korean cooking. From the Ssook Sour, a slightly spicy take on a gin sour with ssook (mugwort), sesame and ginger, to the Do Pumpkin Ma Heart, a comforting cocktail of sweet pumpkin, ma (Chinese yam), spiced rum and cinnamon cream, the cocktails showcased familiar ingredients and flavours in a new light.
February welcomes Quality Melts into the space, a dining concept helmed by Sago House alum Edwin Tan. Bringing New York City’s popular chopped cheese sandwiches to Singapore, he aims to grow his current hawker stall into a bigger culinary business. At the same time, he launches Quality Sodas, a collection of canned sodas mixed with high-end spirits like Nusa Cana rum, Stranger & Sons gin and Buffalo Trace. Following Guerilla’s highly successful run, Ghostwriter has now been transformed into a 1950s-style diner—delivering the full bar and grill experience within its cosy space.
Ghostwriter, 98 Club Street, Level 2, Singapore 069467
Cloudstreet unveils an exquisite new menu in partnership with Penfolds
Michelin-starred restaurant Cloudstreet has launched a seven-course menu born from the transformative experience head chef Mark Tai had in the estate of Mauro Colagreco—head chef of Mirazur, the Michelin-starred destination which received the crown of best restaurant in the world in 2019. Colagreco, who was tapped by Australian wine house Penfolds for its global culinary exchange programme ‘Beyond the Flavours’, handpicked Tai as one of three chefs to visit his restaurant in Menton, France, for a period of exploration and mutual exchange of knowledge and ideas. Inspired by the trip, Tai now presents a limited-time menu available exclusively as a private dining experience within a secluded enclave in the restaurant.
Featuring dishes like a perfectly tender roast quail and oyster enveloped in a silky fermented pair juice and champagne sauce, the menu displays a new level of finesse Tai attributes to the enriching time spent with Colagreco and his team. Each dish is paired creatively with a key bottle from Penfolds’s extensive collection—from the complex and crystalline Cellar Reserve Chardonnay 2018 that works as well with fish as it does with meat, to the Penfolds Grandfather 20-year-old Tawny Port, a symbol of the brand’s heritage and the perfect sweet ending to accompany an array of delicious desserts.
The exclusive Private Dining seven-course Chef’s Table Tasting Menu requires a minimum of seven days advance notice for
a table of six persons.
Reservations: [email protected] / +65 6513 7868
