Singapore offers a blueprint for restaurants back in lockdown
Gulf Times
People walk along Marina Bay promenade at night in Singapore on May 15. Many restaurants in the city have embraced simplicity and are offering dishes that were popular during last year’s circuit breaker.
Singapore has been heralded as the pandemic escape for the superrich. So in the middle of May, when the city shut down in-person dining following a surge in Covid-19 cases, restaurants had to decide how best to serve customers remotely. Through June 13, food and beverage establishments will be limited to take-away and delivery only. The measures are similar to those from last year’s so-called circuit breaker, so most places have experience this time around. The question for many of the city’s upscale establishments was whether to follow last year’s trend toward comfort food, or to appeal to the population of high-income and wealthy people in Singapore who might still cling to a more elevated experience. Many restaurants have embraced simplicity and are offering dishes that were popular during last year’s circuit breaker. The Tippling Club, a mainstay on Asia’s 50 Best lists, has returned to selling standards such as leek and potato soup and Wagyu beef pastrami sandwich. Jonathan Lim, chief executive officer of Oddle, an online food-ordering system with more than 3,000 brands in over 10 countries, says his firm has been encouraging restaurants to get away from the most extensive offerings. “Generally over the past 12 months, we’ve been telling them to steer away from eight-course meals because the experience is not the same,” Lim said in a phone interview. “It’s quite clear that fine dining won’t be replicated in delivery form.” Customers, he says, are looking for family style meals rather than tasting menus. Approaches vary across the high end of the city’s culinary spectrum. Odette, a three-star Michelin establishment and currently No 2 in Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, is sticking largely to the dishes it created when restaurants shut in the middle of 2020. It has a slightly expanded food selection for this round, including a S$98 ($74) Kampot pepper crusted pigeon and a S$118 honey-glazed Burgaud duck with apples and miso jus from chef-owner Julien Royer. Bestsellers include the dark chocolate cake Le Balinais. “We’ve noticed a strong demand for desserts and pastries, as they make for great gifting options, especially with us having to celebrate special occasions from afar,” says general manager Steven Mason. The Michelin-starred Nouri, meanwhile, has pivoted to a new, more informal speciality. The S$48 “perfection burger,” served with nori fries and a milkshake, is a contrast to the S$210 multicourse dining-in menu made up of dishes like pigeon marmalade – fire-grilled Brittany pigeon with mole and cacao nibs. Ivan Brehm, Nouri’s chef and owner, says it’s hard to figure out exactly what people want because this break is scheduled to be only a few weeks long. In addition to the burger and other, more fast-casual-style meals, he’s offering a weekly delivery of farm-to-table vegetables. “There is a definite preference for things that are less complicated. People are cooking more, and markets are well stocked,” Brehm says. “We’d like to believe there is a market” in Singapore, he says, for produce from his partner farms in Malaysia’s Cameron.More Related News