I first heard about Restaurant Andre (41 Bukit Pasoh Road, Singapore 089855; tel. +65 6534 8880) in Singapore from San Pellegrino Asia’s 50 best restaurants list. Making it to this list is a huge media kickoff for any restaurant around the world – I doubt that Noma and El Bulli would be even close to their worldwide fame if they had never held their “world’s best restaurant” titles… Having said that, being the best restaurant in the world or, like in the case of Andre, the 5th best in Asia has it’s own drawbacks as there will be always somebody who will be asking “why?”.
Andre’s tasting menu is divided into 8 sections: pure, salt, artisan, south, texture, unique, memory and terroir. Each section of André Chiang’s “octaphilosophy” has its own description written down on a paper you are given to read even before you taste the food. So “unique”, for example, is “the possibility of experiencing a common ingredient in a different way” and so on… I don’t mind looking at my dinner as at some kind of philosophical journey, but no matter how you package and present it, the food will always speak for itself. And I must say, the cooking at Andre is pretty good and would have been even more enjoyable if not all those excessive (and too analytical for what it is) explanations about André’s viewpoint following each dish.
André Chiang, who has lived and worked in France, has perfectly mastered French cooking techniques while using only the best products. Nothing revolutionary or new, but definitely worth a visit if you are around…
The desserts…
