At Singapore’s most expensive restaurant, meals sprawl upwards of three hours
Advertisement
Experiences
At Singapore'south almost expensive restaurant, meals sprawl upwards of iii hours
Which is why it's important that you dine at Restaurant Zen with someone you lot really, really like.
Eatery Zen is the Singapore satellite of Restaurant Frantzen, which holds the honor of beingness the first and only establishment to be awarded three Michelin stars in Sweden. (Photo: Zen)
24 May 2022 06:30AM (Updated: 04 Jul 2022 05:22PM)
What do you go when you pay S$450 per head for a meal (before drinks and taxes)? You get a dining experience that traverses a three-storey shophouse tricked out in tasteful modernistic-Scandinavian chic. Ane where the service is then unrelentingly attentive that yous fear you lot might not get a minute to conversation with your dining companion; one that unfurls over iii languid hours (or more), with plenty of twee yet hearty nutrient, drinks, and a playlist that might delight or perplex y'all, depending on the generation in which you were born.
Such are the charms of Restaurant Zen, the Singapore satellite of Restaurant Frantzen, which holds the honour of being the beginning and only establishment to be awarded three Michelin stars in Sweden.
"I want for Zen to be like you lot've come to a house party," said chef-owner Bjorn Frantzen when he was in Singapore last November before the eatery's opening. Indeed, guests ring a doorbell earlier entering, and are shown to the "living expanse", where aperitifs are served in exquisitely cut glasses and preciously wrought canapes like tartlets filled with beer-poached crustaceans are proffered.
Diners are welcomed similar familiar friends. Every member of the staff looks you lot in the eye, eager to share a asset or five most the potable you might be nursing or the dish they might be preparing tableside. If yous've a question virtually anything at all, every 1 of them would accept an eloquent answer for you.
Just first, the produce – the finest flown in from the likes of Japan and the Swedish motherland, proudly displayed and explained to every guest at a counter past the kitchen on the footing floor. Then a tour of said kitchen, where compact slivers of marron are grilled over coals, an regular army of navy-shirted, tweezer-begetting chefs are hunched over saucers of artfully plated food, and where head chef Tristan Farmer, threaded in the snazziest role of leather brogues this side of Chinatown, keeps a close center on his team.
Before y'all know information technology, 45 minutes take flown by and you've downed five delicious little snacks, and perhaps a drink or two. More friendly staff shepherd you to the dining room on the second floor, slinging your handbags over their shoulders with stylish abandon.
With the repast, guests can cull a wine (S$250) or non-alcoholic pairing (Due south$125), or a mix of both (South$175). For the feint of stomach, that translates to eight glasses of libations – and that's before the postal service-prandial offerings.
"I want for Zen to exist like you've come to a house party." – Bjorn Frantzen
Zen's food honours Frantzen's signature style of parsing French techniques with Japanese influences. For Singapore'southward oft-indulged fine-dining public, this isn't a new approach to haute cuisine, then it helps that the Nordic influences nudge the food into newish territory.
There is red deer tartare, deeply flavoured and topped with a crucial crown of caviar that imbues it with a saline counterpoint to the meat's richness. Marron, butter-poached and so grilled, sits in an ascetic puddle of butter emulsion, koshikari rice, yuzu kosho and ginger emulsion. Akamutsu (black throat sea perch) follows, enriched with chicken fat and walnut milk then that it is creamy, briny and unctuous all at once.
By the 6th master course, the meal begins to veer on the side of existence too rich. The Nordic penchant for dairy tips dishes like chawanmushi – made with konbu-infused cream and milk rather than dashi, and topped with grilled king crab and pan-seared foie gras – into gut-busting territory.
Every dish comes with some tableside action, be it a civil drizzle of sauce onto the plate or actual cooking on brushed-wood trolleys. By the time you make your way up to the salon on the tertiary flooring for fruit (from Japan, of course) and mignardises, you feel you already know your server well enough to trade bawdry jokes with him or wish her well on her upcoming travels. You would take besides heard 1 Dire Straits and Men At Work song too many.
Without doubt, information technology is the interactions with Zen's impeccably trained crew that offer the real reason to visit the restaurant. Since the meal can stretch well over three hours if y'all let it, it is besides important that you lot choose your dining partners well.
Upwards of three hours is a long time to sit with someone, even someone you're trying to impress into a big-money bargain. This, then, is a dining experience for those who value the pleasure of good company (their companion's and the staff's) as much as they do being indulged in an evening of backlog.
Recent Searches
Trending Topics
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/experiences/restaurant-zen-singapore-239721
0 Response to "At Singapore’s most expensive restaurant, meals sprawl upwards of three hours"
Post a Comment