Every now and then, we’re stumped when friends ask us where we should go to eat. So we rounded up some of the restaurants where we had the best experiences this year.
We’ve selected restaurants from various cuisines, such as Japanese, Spanish, Australian-fusion and more. Some are high end, and some are casual eateries, but you can expect equally delicious food from all of them.
Click on to see the other restaurants in the gallery.
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Publico Ristorante opened just this November at the new Intercontinental Hotel. It offers a spread of classic Italian food and we were most impressed by the pizzas as well as the steak.
We loved the Burrata, Gorgonzola, and Tartufata pizzas, though the Gorgonzola was arguably the best, with walnuts and honey accentuating the nutty gorgonzola cheese and dashes of savoury pancetta balancing it as a whole. Go for it if you love strong flavours. If not, get the burrata pizza which comes with generous servings of the cheese, sun-dried tomatoes with a pleasant consistency, and large fresh basil leaves.
Meat lovers need to order the Bistecca Beef Steak as well. The meat was very well seasoned and comes close to melting in your mouth.
There’s a lot of things to love about Publico Ristorante, and it’s not just the food. It could be the lush greenery, flame-filled stone pizza ovens, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, good music choice, or comfy chairs that and sofas that make you never want to leave. Everything about this place pulls together perfectly.
Bring your friends here for a night of convivial dining and good conversations over a bottle of wine at the bar.
Location: 1 Nanson Rd, Singapore 238909 | Menu
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Singapore’s first Jamie’s Deli outlet opened this November and fronts Jamie’s Italian restaurant in Vivocity. Okay, so this is not really a restaurant, but a small deli that is better suited for grab-and-go orders. But the food is great and oh-so-convenient for the people who work nearby.
Its menu offers Danish pastries and muffins meant for the morning. As for lunch, you could order soup or salad, which changes daily so you won’t get tired of the same food. The gourmet sandwiches are fixed, but the kind of bread used is switched every day, for some variety. Ooh, and did we mention the pizza? These square cuts of doughy and cheesy bread, are made with the occasional fresh ingredients such as scratch-made tomato sauce or fresh basil leaves.
One of our favourites were the muffins though, especially the caramel one which smelled richly sweet and nutty when we broke it apart to reveal the golden centre of oozing caramel. The muffins were soft and moist too, with a perfectly baked crust. Mmm, we wished we worked nearby.
Location: VivoCity, 1 Harbourfront Walk #01-165/167, Singapore 098585
Bayswater Kitchen is aptly named, being located at Keppel Bay, where you can enjoy the waterfront view and fresh air. Meals are meant to be a family or group affair, with hearty platters to share and sharing plates everyone can dig into. And there’s even a ‘recreational room’ (it’s actually a private dining room) with a foosball and ping pong table where visitors can just chill when it’s not being used.
As for the food, there were a lot of hits and barely any misses. Some great dishes were the meaty Beef Agnolotti with smoked bone marrow and tiny scallions; Irish Oysters that were plump and juicy, sitting in pools of refreshing red wine vinegar; and tender Lamb Cutlets that were smoky and rich in flavour, with a nice seared crust and rare inside.
These dishes only begin to scratch the surface. Bayswater does all of its dishes so well (including the desserts, pastas and meats), that you forget it’s meant to be a seafood restaurant.
We had the Fisherman’s Feast, dish with hand-rolled linguine, lobster, prawns, mussels, fish and whatever else is in season, all cooked in a skillet with seafood stock, meaning there wasn’t much to mask the flavours of the mildly sweet and fresh seafood.
The food is fresh, unpretentious, and we can’t emphasise enough how nearly every dish hit the spot. Go visit it when you have a chance.
Location: 2 Keppel Bay Vista, Singapore 098382 | Ala carte menu, set lunch menu
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Simply put, Chikin marries Japanese yakitori with Szechuan barbecue that’s amped up with mala spices. Throw in some infused cocktails, and you’ve got a great night ahead.
It’s more of a place to go for supper, or a couple of drinks paired with spicy and moreish skewers. We found the food at our table was being depleted really quickly, and no, it’s not because of the portion size. The food was really just that tasty.
Take for example, the humble appetiser of ‘Simple Burdock Chips’. These root vegetable chips were crisp, earthy, and pleasantly bitter. The mala miso sauce served with it was addictive and we found ourselves digging into the crumbs before we knew it. The Chikin Meatballs were well spiced with the right herbs, has a nice seared outer crust, and included bits of cartilage that added bite to the meat. The Chikin Thigh was juicy and succulent, while the Chikin Tail was exceedingly crisp and laden with fats. Talk about sinful.
Offal lovers need to try the Chikin gizzard, heart, and windpipe, all of which taste great too.
And don’t leave without trying some of their drinks. We enjoyed the citrusy and herbaceous Shisho My Mojo (sake spiked with a shiso leaf, yuzu and calamansi) and Sumoki Raisin, a whiskey and sherry mixture infused with raisins and the smoke of apple wood chips.
Location: 6 Bukit Pasoh Rd, Singapore 089820
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Another casual restaurant we think is worth visiting is Butcher Boy. This one is Asian-inspired too, like Chikin, but what sets it apart is its specialisation in cuts of grilled meat, meant to be drenched in a large variety of Asian sauces, such as Sambal, Vietnamese, XO, Yuzu Bernaise, and Black Pepper.
Purists generally wouldn’t like their steaks and meats drenched in sauces, preferring for the meat’s flavours to be the main feature. We used to feel that way, but the well-made sauces evoked memories of comfort foods in us, be it the Chinese classic XO sauce, Black Pepper sauce that reminded us of a western hawker stall, or Yuzu Bernaise tasted faintly of the addictive Kewpie Mayonnaise. We almost can’t decide if this is a good or bad thing. But with everyone at the table devouring the food, we knew it resonated with all of us.
There are also baos, buns and banh mi available. We tried the Fried Chicken Bao (pictured here). It looked very unassuming and we didn’t think much of it until that first bite when our teeth sank past the soft-as-clouds buns into a hot and juicy fried chicken patty.
And did we mention their selection of cocktails are creative and delicious too? If you like sweet drinks, get the Street Side Milk Punch for a large street style plastic bag filled with Cachaca, Thai Milk Tea, and Salted Caramel. Or if saccharine cocktails are not so much your thing, give the Salty Boy a go, for a mixture of vodka, grapefruit, and Thai pickle.
Location: 31 Keong Saik Rd, Singapore 089138 | Menu
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Merci Marcel is that new trendy spot in Tiong Bahru, and is always packed to the brim during brunch. (Go during dinner time so you won’t have to wait for a seat.)
Having taken over the Orange Thimble, which was a lot dimmer and mysterious in terms of atmosphere, Merci Marcel has completely changed the look of everything. Light floods the place from both the glass entrance and the courtyard at the back, a beautiful tropical looking bar in colours of beige, off-white and verdant green flank the wall, while shelves in the corners sport French merchandise such as wine, jams, or even sunglasses and tote bags.
It’s a ‘social dining’ concept, which means the food is meant to be shared, and come portioned like tapas.
There is a great selection, but we found the seafood options to be exceptionally tasty, be it the Black Pepper Tuna with yuzu and soy vinaigrette, or the Ceviche of Red Snapper we couldn’t get enough of.
One dish that really stood out from the rest though, was the Ravioles de Royans, a decadently indulgent French dumpling pasta that is stuffed with Tête de Moine cheese, then coated and garnished with even more cheese for good measure. Still, it tasted delicious and wasn’t overwhelming. Still, we don’t think one person could finish this alone so make sure you share.
Location: 56 Eng Hoon Street, #01-68
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Fisk is a brand new restaurant/seafood market/bar/grocery shop. Yes, and it does all of those things well without a hiccup.
Freshly caught seafood from Norway and various countries around the world are shipped to Fisk, where the staff displays them on ice, in an 18m long seafood bar. Meanwhile, chefs in the back use fish from the same shipment to whip up various Scandinavian classics like Smorrebrod, Asian inspired dishes such as Japanese-style Trout Tataki, and even a seafood based dessert – uni ice cream.
We recommend the Creamed fish and shellfish soup with seasonal heirloom crudité vegetables, bread and butter. Not only was it rich in flavour from the seafood, it was creamy, tangy, and had large chunks of the fish available that day.
Don’t miss out on trying the Smoked Salmon with scrambled eggs and flatbread. The salmon was brined for 24 hours in a mixture of salt and sugar, the latter of which draws out more moisture. This resulted in very firm but tender curls of smoked salmon that melts in the mouth. Alternate each bite with crunchy flatbread, piled with mounds of lightly seasoned scrambled eggs, and you’ve got bliss.
Finally, you need to order a platter of Greenland Prawns, served on ice. These small boiled prawns look a little disappointing at first, but they are loaded with tiny clusters of roe and are filled with very sweet and firm meat. This is yet another one of those dishes you won’t want to stop eating. Order these last as prawn peeling will be a messy affair.
Location: 30 Stevens Road #01-01, Singapore 257840 | Menu
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Blackwattle, a new restaurant by Chef Clayton Wells of Sydney’s Automata, is experimental and bold in nature.
Ingredients like rosemary dashi make its way into a stormshell clam, anchovies give butter a briny but moreish taste, while the dessert sorbet was made out of surprisingly healthy option, pumpkin seeds that had a mild savoury taste.
It was unusual, to say the least. But we liked it. We liked the idea of how you could pop something into your mouth and have an entirely unexpected taste. And we also liked how we might be put-off by the descriptions of the food, but end up enjoying it anyway (like anchovy butter, which sounded disgusting at first).
The food at Blackwattle encouraged us to actually taste and think about what we were eating, instead of simply consuming the food while enjoying conversation.
The ingredients on the menu also vary day by day, depending on what produce is available at the market, so you’re bound to be in for a bit of a surprise when you visit. Try it with an adventurous foodie friend.
Location: 97 Amoy St, Singapore 069917 | Menu
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Even if you’re not an uni lover, preferring to stick to traditional sashimi and sushi, you might be surprised to find that actually enjoy Uni Gallery’s fare, like we did.
The ‘problem’ with uni is that it is often overly briny and sometimes soggy. That likely means you’ve tried a bad grade of uni. Great uni is firmer, sweet in taste, and vibrant in colour.
The Uni Gallery has uni cyclically flown in from Japan, USA, Canada, and Russia every two days. With so many types of uni from around the world, we guess you could say they’ve got everything you’ve been ‘seaurchin’ for.
Anyway, the day we were at Uni Gallery, we got to try the Canadian Aka uni (very sweet uni that was not too creamy), and the Japanese Bafun Uni (very creamy and delicate uni with a mildly sweet taste accompanied by a tinge of brininess).
The uni comes in various dishes. You could choose to eat them alone, but if you want a bit of variety, get it as an Uni Oyster Shot (uni served on a fresh oyster) or Uni Maki (uni served in a sushi roll, complemented by tobiko roe, snow crab, tamago and cucumber) just to name a few. If you want a simple dish, go for the Uni Ikura Chirashi, which is pretty much everything the name says it is.
We recommend the Uni Gallery for a casual lunch with friends, but perhaps not a romantic date or family gathering, as the space is small and can get noisy.
Location: 7500A Beach Road, The Plaza, #B1-310, Singapore 199591 | Menu is unavailable online, but call 9838 8209 for more info or a picture of the menu.
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La Pepa, which opened in October is a tiny and cosy little tapas restaurant and bar. Tucked away in Gemmill Lane, La Pepa is a bit of a hidden gem.
The owners and chefs of the restaurants also travelled to Spain to personally source and select the best ingredients from artisanal producers, where possible.
We started our meal with the Ensalada Pepa, a salad made with manchego cheese, mojama (a brined tuna called the ‘jamon of the sea’ for its meaty taste), heirloom tomatoes, greens, and fragrant olive oil. It tasted homely and got our appetites raring for more.
The Gambas al Ajillo was a paella dish with squid ink, and large succulent tiger prawns. The rice was very grainy and crusty at some parts, which is great for people who like a bit of bite in their food.
We ended our meal with Cuajada con Miel, a light and milky curd dressed with eucalyptus honey. Simple and sweet.
We like La Pepa, not just because of the food, but the whole experience of having dinner in a restaurant that made us feel like we’re in a cosy Spanish enclave. It’s nice for a romantic date or lunch with some friends.
Location: 10 Gemmill Lane Singapore 069251 | Menu
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Never have we thought it would be justified to pay $22 for a sandwich. 1KS by Park Bench Deli had us changing our minds completely for their Short Rib ‘Swiss’, a hoagie sandwich that has some of its bread hollowed out just so more short rib meat could be stuffed into it. That meat was marinated in wine for 5 hours, before being topped with juicy sauteed mushrooms, crispy and meaty bacon, melted cheddar, and mustard aioli to give it a zing. One bite had won us over. 10/10, we would buy it again, no qualms about the price.
The sandwiches here don’t have any bells and whistles – they’re usually made from classic combinations such as lox or avocado toasts. What really sets the sandwiches apart are really the delicious taste of well-prepared ingredients.
The next time you want to treat yourself to a nice lunch when working, go to 1KS. Maybe bring your laptop along and work here instead, as it also doubles as a co-working space. That way, you can grab a bite whenever you feel like it.
Location: 1 Keong Saik Rd, Singapore 089109 | Menu
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