SINGAPORE – Nothing fires up the Singapore diner quite like the pursuit of the new. Crowds flock to new cafes, stand in long lines for designer croissants from famous pastry chefs, and pounce on pre-orders for this baked good or that nasi ulam on Instagram.

Of course, restaurateurs and chefs are happy to oblige, presenting choices that come hard and fast. Some 300 or so new restaurants open here every month. Some will thrive; about a third, sometimes more, will wither.

What these four new restaurants have in common is that they are helmed by names from abroad, some newer to Singapore than others. Their owners are also ambitious.

There is Roia at EJH Corner House at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Indian chef Priyam Chatterjee, new to Singapore, is serving fine French food with botanical accents there.

Tiny Abura Kappo, with six seats, is a restaurant within Hashida, chef Kenjiro Hashida’s sushiya in Amoy Street. The chef, who marks 10 years in Singapore in 2023, is putting together menus from his fertile imagination, inspired by his travels and collaborations with other chefs. A meal there will never be classic.

In the new year, pastry chef Makoto Arami is taking his online business, Ami Patisserie, out of the cloud and onto Scotts Road in a restaurant built to resemble a Kyoto machiya, a traditional wooden townhouse. It has been six years since he came to Singapore, and he thinks it is time to convince diners that pastries are not just snacks and desserts – they can also be an entire meal, a multi-course tasting menu.

And then there is Air, taking shape in Dempsey Road. The sprawling venture by American chefs Will Goldfarb and Matthew Orlando, and Indonesian entrepreneur Ronald Akili, comprises a two-storey restaurant with a research space and cooking school, a large lawn for dining and a garden farm. They want to change the way diners think about food waste by mining what usually gets thrown out for flavour.

Will diners bite? There is every indication that they will. At least once.

In pursuit of deliciousness

Air

Opens: January 2024
Where: 25B Dempsey Road; tel: 8228-1528
Open: 5 to 11pm (Wednesdays to Fridays), 11am to 11pm (Saturdays and Sundays), closed on Mondays and Tuesdays
Info: aircccc.com

The restaurant name is short for Awareness, Impact and Responsibility. Restaurant might, in fact, be too limiting a description, because Air also encompasses a cooking school, research space and garden farm. Its founders want to “inspire thought about food”.

Cue massive eye roll. It all sounds so earnest. So politically correct. So preachy.

But people might change their minds when they taste the banana caramel made with banana skins, the fermented cassava flatbread, the noodles made with fish bones, and granite made with papaya skins.

American chef Matthew Orlando, 46, one of the three founders, is clear about what Air wants to do.

He says: “The pursuit of deliciousness is first and foremost. Anything else is the cherry on top. When you deliver flavour, you have people’s attention.

“We are not pursuing sustainability, we are pursuing flavour. I can give you all the facts about carbon emissions and environmental impact, or I can feed you a spoon of delicious food and get your attention.”

He is opening Air with fellow American chef Will Goldfarb, 48, of Room4Dessert in Bali, and entrepreneur Ronald Akili, 40, who co-founded the Potato Head hospitality brand in Bali.

Their venture, which is costing a seven-figure sum to realise, is ambitious. Located near Samy’s Curry Restaurant and Jumbo Seafood in the Dempsey gourmet enclave, Air is housed in a 4,000 sq ft complex that used to be a clubhouse for civil servants.

Guests get to Air via a 100m wooden walkway. Along the way, they can check out the fruit, vegetables and herbs growing in the garden run by urban farming social enterprise, City Sprouts. They will also walk by an expansive lawn area, which can take up to 350 people willing to sit outdoors, and a semi-outdoors bar.

The two-storey building seats 45 on each level. On the second floor is the research space, where diners can wander into to see what the chefs are up to. They might also sign up for cooking classes, or talks by farmers and producers.

Chef Orlando has relocated to Singapore, and chef Goldfarb has already been splitting his time equally between Singapore and Bali. They have lost no time getting the garden up and running, and sourcing for ingredients such as line-caught coral grouper from a supplier at Chinatown Complex market, vanilla pods from home-grown company Mireia, and kaluga caviar from Malaysia.

Chef Orlando says: “There is so much here. I keep finding stuff. I’m like a kid in a candy shop. Rosella, coral grouper, the flavour of basil here is different, it is way more medicinal.”

He has also learnt a thing or two about the Singapore diner.

He says: “Whether you are a plumber, an electrician or a lawyer, everyone has a particular spot they go to for a particular thing. The intense passion for food is insane. A $6 hawker meal is valued the same way as a $600 tasting menu. You can have a guy with a Lamborghini parked out front eating hor fun. I love that.”

What he is doing at Air is a continuation of what he did at his Copenhagen restaurant, Amass, which closed in 2022 after nine years. The former chef de cuisine of Noma had also worked at The Fat Duck in Bray and Per Se in New York.

At Amass, he began looking seriously at how to find deliciousness in food waste. Stale bread became ice cream, coffee grounds turned into miso, and in 2017, he figured out how to use fish bones to make convincing noodles. In fact, he gave that recipe to Australian chef Josh Niland, who recently opened Fysh at The Singapore Edition, a new hotel in Cuscaden Road.

Fish bone noodles feature in Whole Coral Grouper For Two, a main course on Air’s menu, which is a la carte. The fish head is made into a rillette and served with emping crackers, the filet confited and topped with a green onion and black garlic vinaigrette made with stock from fish trimmings, served together with the noodles, which are tossed with mushroom butter.

For dessert, there is The Whole Papaya, with pieces of fresh papaya napped with peppery papaya seed cream made by lactic-fermenting the seeds and grinding them to a fine powder, then infusing that in the cream. Papaya skins are also lactic-fermented, blended into syrup, frozen and blitzed into granite.

Chef Orlando says: “The papaya skin tastes better than the papaya.”

Prices have not been nailed down, but chef Goldfarb says diners can expect to pay $120 to $130 for dinner with alcohol. When staffing permits, he adds, Air will open for breakfast and lunch, with a lower spend per head.

“We want to be an accessible luxury,” he says.

He adds: “The restaurant scene here has developed so much. Every few years, there is a revolution.”

Might he be looking to start one here?

French food inspired by Botanic Gardens

Roia

Where: EJH Corner House, Singapore Botanic Gardens, 1 Cluny Road; tel: 8908-1705
Open: 6.30pm to midnight (Wednesdays to Sundays), closed on Mondays and Tuesdays
Info: roia.sg

The lights are back on at EJH Corner House at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

Corner House, the one-Michelin-starred restaurant, operated there for nine years before closing in June 2023. Now, a young chef from India is heading fine-dining restaurant Roia on the premises, named after the late Edred John Henry Corner, the former assistant director of the gardens who lived there.

Chef Priyam Chatterjee, 35, who went to culinary school in India, trained under French chefs there and in France, and was part of the opening team for Fauchon in Oman.

In 2019, he received the Chevalier de l’Ordre du Merite Agricole (Order of Agricultural Merit), given by France to recognise outstanding contributions to agriculture, the agro-food industry and gastronomy, among other things.

He headed Rooh and Qla, two restaurants in Delhi, before being scouted to open the Singapore restaurant. Two friends had, at different times, suggested he might be the chef that RB Food Group, which runs Lebanese restaurant Ummi Beirut and Publico Ristorante, was looking for.

He spoke with Mr Kishin RK, the 40-year-old founder and chief executive of real estate acquisition and development company RB Capital Group, over Zoom and the two hit it off.

Chef Chatterjee says of that first chat in 2021: “I told him I’d love to be a part of what he was setting up, but I had committed to two other projects. Then this January, another friend suggested I have a word with someone looking to open a restaurant.”

It turned out to be Mr Kishin.

“This was destined,” chef Chatterjee says. “I am very grateful because Singapore chose me.”

Mr Kishin says: “Chef Priyam has been an upcoming talent we have been tracking closely over the years. When EJH Corner House came up for tender, we knew it was the perfect opportunity to introduce him to Singapore’s dining scene at this location.”

RB Food Group put in a seven-figure sum to turn the space into Roia, named after Roya, a river that runs from France to Italy. The 30-seat restaurant, with a private dining room that seats six to 12, has a breezy-luxe feel, the chairs sporting fabric upholstery and rattan trim.

The chef, who trained in French cuisine, serves contemporary French food in two tasting menus, priced at $188++ for six courses and $288++ for eight courses.

Roia’s location is also serving as inspiration.

Chef Chatterjee says: “This building is so iconic, and it’s inside another iconic space. Every dish has a name inspired by the Botanic Gardens. At the end of the meal, there has to be a memory that you take back. And if I can have a story to tell you during the meal, then we have a connection.”

One of the courses, Fungi & Corner, pays tribute to Mr Corner, who was a mycologist. A potato cake is topped with various varieties of mushroom, topped with a confit egg yolk and with black truffles from Perigord, and seasonal flowers and herbs.

Corners Flowers, the chef adds, pays tribute to the former assistant director’s love for orchids and the chef’s own love for the artist Damien Hirst. Japanese cod is pan-cooked, then dressed with aioli, lemon confit, flowers and herbs. It is served with three sauces – beetroot and paprika, yuzu kosho and calamansi, and smoked almond milk emulsion.

Chef Chatterjee says: “It’s very important for me to cook food that is relatable. I think of the diner first. If I give you something I think is good for you, you might not necessarily feel the same. You are giving me your precious time. If I can’t make it worthwhile, why are we doing this?”

Making a meal of pastry

Ami Patisserie

Opens: Mid-January 2024
Where: 27 Scotts Road; tel: 8907-6146
Open: Patisserie Cafe – 11.30am to 6pm (Tuesdays to Fridays), 11am to 6pm (Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays); Tsudoi Dining Room – noon to 3pm, 7 to 9pm (Wednesdays to Saturdays), noon to 6pm (Sundays and public holidays)
Info: @amipatisseriesg on Instagram

Fans of pastry chef Makoto Arami’s creations for Ami Patisserie, his online business, wax lyrical about the signature Mont Blanc tarts, his well-constructed cakes topped with Japanese fruit, those ethereal choux puffs.

The 35-year-old is set to show diners just how much wider his repertoire is, when the bricks-and-mortar Ami Patisserie opens in Scotts Road. It will be housed in a standalone building on the same grounds as a stately colonial bungalow. Construction is ongoing for the space, which is modelled after a Kyoto machiya, a traditional wooden townhouse.

When completed, Ami, which cost a six-figure sum to set up, will house a 12-seat cafe-patisserie, where diners can choose from chef Arami’s selection of choux (from $11++), seasonal fruit tarts (from $18++), vegetable tarts (from $15++), plated desserts (from $16++) and, for the first time, fruit parfaits (from $35++).

There will also be an eight-seat Tsudoi Dining Room, where the chef will serve his tasting menu. The Chef’s Table Discovery Experience is expected to cost $118++ a person, with a snack, bread, four savoury items, a palate cleanser, two plated desserts and petit fours.

Despite living and breathing pastry, the chef says he does not have a sweet tooth.

“I don’t eat many sweets,” he says. “And I reduce the sugar in my creations to make them lighter.”

On his days off, he likes going all over Singapore for bak chor mee, cooks Italian food and makes pasta from scratch.

“I love cooking so much,” he says.

He went into pastry because of his father and grandfather. His late grandfather, Mr Genjiro Arami, opened his wagashi shop, Arami Seikahou, in Hikone City, Shiga prefecture, in 1935. Chef Arami’s father, the late Kenichi Arami, trained in pastry in France, Italy and the United States, and took the business in a new direction, offering yogashi or Western sweets, renaming the business Gen.

Chef Makoto Arami started baking when he was 15, although his father was already teaching him how to cut fruit to bring out their flavour when he was four. He went to culinary school in Tokyo, then worked in France and the US, notably at Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York.

Back in Japan, he was in the opening team for Ansel’s Tokyo outpost. He has been in Singapore for six years, and had come here to work as executive pastry chef at Beni restaurant, before moving to Marina Bay Sands as pastry sous chef. He started Ami Patisserie in 2021 with Sarika Connoisseur Cafe Group, which also runs restaurants here such as Ki-sho and Buona Terra.

Now, apart from sourcing fruit from Japan, he also gets eggplant for his Nasu Brulee, served with miso ice cream as part of the tasting menu, and Amela tomatoes for his Shizuoka Tomato Tartelette, among other ingredients.

For the first time, he will also serve his sourdough bread as part of the tasting menu. He made the starter four months ago, using apples from Aomori prefecture. The loaves boast a thin, crackly crust and a light crumb. The chef is looking to offer tartines, which are open-faced sandwiches, at the cafe in the future.

He says: “We lived above the shop and every morning, I would wake up to the smell of sponge cake and choux puffs baking. Every day, I would take cookies to school.

“My father taught me why pastry is good, how it makes people happy. We had so many regulars come every day to buy our cakes. I make cakes for guests to make them happy.”

Crossing boundaries with cooked food

Abura Kappo

Where: 77 Amoy Street; tel: 8129-5336
Open: One seating, at 7pm, Tuesdays to Sundays, closed on Mondays
Info: hashida.sg

Regulars at Hashida in Amoy Street have come to expect the classic and the innovative, when it comes to chef Kenjiro Hashida’s omakase sushi meals. It comes from the philosophy that guides his craft – shu ha ri; getting a good grounding in tradition before innovating and then transcending to develop a unique style.

Abura Kappo, which opened on Dec 5, is heavy on the “ri” part of the equation. This six-seat restaurant, located within Hashida, is where the well-travelled chef will unleash his creativity. The 44-year-old curates the menus and four members of his team execute them.

He says: “I often meet people who tell me they don’t come to Hashida because they don’t eat raw food. With Abura Kappo, they can give me a chance and try my cuisine. When I do collaborations with other chefs, diners wonder why I am there. I have a lot of ideas for cooked food.”

He named the restaurant after the Japanese word for “oil”, because that ingredient underpins so much of cooking, transcending borders and diets.

“Vegan, vegetarian, non-vegetarian, everyone eats oil,” he says.

Diners can expect boundary-crossing food filtered through a Japanese lens. What this translates to in the first menu, with 13 courses and priced at $200++ a person, are bites such as Lamb x Squid, featuring raw lamb and squid seasoned with housemade gin salt, with camembert cheese and sharp, citrusy kinome leaves; and Soft Soba Taco.

He developed the recipe for the buckwheat wrap as a landing pad for his reimagining of sukiyaki – deep-fried minced wagyu cutlet topped with tofu emulsion, shungiku sauce and with egg yolk spooned over. These are all elements in a sukiyaki pot.

Oden, in the form of soft, simmered daikon and ripe Japanese tomatoes, are given the tempura treatment. Lest diners think deep frying is the only way he uses oil, there is aromatic spring onion oil dotted on Tuna Consomme.

The meals also include donabe, rice cooked in a claypot, featuring seasonal fish. But even that is not quite the donabe most diners are used to. Here, donabe and maki become one. Bowls of the rice and seafood will come with three toppings – spicy tuna, prawn tempura and julienned vegetables, the sort that go into Korean gimbap rice rolls – and sheets of nori. Diners then roll their own maki.

Those still wanting more after dessert can pick from a small a la carte menu, with offerings such as Uni & Caviar Tempura ($35++) and Kani Tempura ($12++).

Abura Kappo is meant to be casual, and the uptempo music, with English, Chinese, Italian and French tunes, will reflect that. Chef Hashida wants the little restaurant to be a stage for his chefs to cook for and interact with diners.

The four chefs are Katsuhiko Yamamura, 49, who joined the restaurant two months ago; Sam Foo, 27, Luis Hou, 25, and Rumina Chiba, 24, all of whom have worked at Hashida for two years.

Chef Yamamura says: “I hope we can give diners a new experience.”