Santi (Singapore) - HE

Having visited  Spain four times this year and a bunch of very good restaurants, not going to Santi was a stain in my curriculum. Would it be worth going in Singapore when Barcelona was only a couple of hours away from home? At the same time we were on the waiting list of Restaurant Andre. No soon had we booked a table at Santi, Restaurant André sent us an e-mail saying they had a table for us. Tough choice! We kept our reservation at Santi and it was eventually the right decision, not that the alternative was bad (as we came to realise when discussing our decision with Santi's staff that highly praised the jeune André and his new restaurant) but because our choice was so right from the service, to the ambience, the staff and, of course, the food. 

Singapore will soon be the new capital hub of fine dining, Santi Santamaria knew it and made the courageous move to challenge the asian population, ex-pats and tourists with a Spanish/Catalonian style cuisine. Unfortunately, 2010 assisted the tragic collapse of the internationally reputed chef in Singapore. This was a major lost to the culinary world. Santamaria was a perfectionist and the first Spaniard to earn 3 Michelin stars from the academy, he kept successfully opening new restaurants adding 4 more stars to his chef's jacket. Singapore will likely to be next, for now it has been awarded the 2010 Best New Restaurant in Singapore by Tatler Asian Dining, an impressive achievement considering the heavyweight newcomers that joined him at the Marina Bay Sands last year. Lately, Santi was also know for his naturalism and his rift with cuisine mogul Ferran Adria following a letter sent to the latter in respect of the usage of chemicals and unnatural products in El Bulli's inventions.

Santi Singapore is located at level two of the Casino Atrium at The Shoppes of the Marina Bay Sands. It combines elegant and haute cuisine dishes with a relaxed ambience. A special word for Joan Lopez, the general manager, and Gianni Bartolomeo, sommelier, for showing what is outstanding service, and its chef for the cuisine coordination and perfection. Thanks once again for the cuisine tour, what a magnificent atelier you have there. 

Keep up the good work, Santi would be proud of what you achieved so far.  

Service: 19/20

As stated above, we were welcomed into Santi's with nothing more that an excellent service. The dinning room team comprised both Singaporeans and Europeans, a great combination as it turns out. The first have a professional, reserved demeanour and perform with clockwork precision while the latter add the "feel at home" element that makes eating at this restaurant all the better. 

It could be that the fact that we both speak Spanish was a meaningful factor here but, then again, different diners from different cultures require a different approach, Joan Lopez's team understands than better than anyone!   

Restaurant décor and ambience: 15/20

Santi's decoration is sober and well connected to its surroundings. As usual in top tables, the white cloths bare little on top of them other than a simple flower arrangement (in Singapore, the orchid seems to be a favourite) and candles. 

We didn't love the Santi personalised table sets nor the coloured water glasses but it is far from shocking. 

The floors are wooden which makes it a little noisy.   

Food: 18.5/20

Santi brings its Spanish influences, more specifically, the Catalonian and the "mountain and sea" watermark" to Singapore using mostly local ingredients (although some of them are not up to the level of the ones that you would find in an European cuisine). The food is sophisticated and elegant, naturally conceived with detail and passion, full of different and unexpected combinations of flavors and textures. The light foams/emulsions featured in a number of courses on the menu bring the dishes to life and are a joy to our eyes and palate.

It is also worth mentioning that as soon as a guest makes a reservation or arrives at the restaurant the front of house staff informs the cuisine of the nationality of the guests. The cuisine then adapts the cooking of each dish to the nationality, e.g. chinese generally prefer food unsalted, therefore if there is a table of chinese people it is likely that there dishes are cooked with no salt as apposed to an European table. Also, the menu is flexible and adaptable, to the guests needs, but this should go without saying at this level.

Available à la carte menu with a wide range of starters and mains, a surprise menu prepared by the chef or a seasonal menu composed of 7 dishes plus a welcome pack of "chips", an amouse bouche, petit fours and the possibility to add two more dishes to the menu at an additional price.

We opted for the seasonal menu and added the 65ºC egg covered with white truffle on top of an onion pure and surrounded with butter and vegetable broth foam. 

Dehydrated chips were laid on the table as soon as we sat, simple, crunchy, appealing and lightly flavoured. 

Bread, butter, virgin olive oil and salt and peppers were served as in a proper Spanish restaurant.

The amouse bouche was a classic smooth gazpacho with salmon eggs (the explosion of the sea flavoured eggs goes incredibly well with the sweetness and acidity of the gazpacho) and ocean's trout with avocado (freshness and sea written all over it). A light way into the menu.

The calamares, cold potato, eggplant, garlic and iberian ham were the first dish on the line. The potatoes seemed to be with an excess of condiments, the eggplant flavourless. The calamares great, after traveling around Asia for some time, is good to savour comfort food cooked with precision. Not a great dish, but a good effort.

What about the "guisante" that followed? Lobster and shrimps en la plancha, with a toasted bread, crunchy peas and pine-nuts or a similar nut covered with an indescribable butter and orange foam. This was one of the most remarkable dishes served all night. Spot on!

And then the additional and one of the most expected, the egg cooked at 65ºC covered with white truffle on top of an onion pure and surrounded with butter and vegetable broth foam. Where shall I start? The onion pure was gentle and smooth and combined perfectly with the flow of egg yolk and the aromatic thin than air vegetable stock and butter foam. The master white truffle was on top serving as a second skin to the fragile walls of the egg white. It simply rested there exhuming all its strong aroma into the air, seducing and inebriating the whole restaurant and adding an extended exquisiteness and creativity to the dish. This is the kind of creation that we are expecting from a world class restaurant that works with top and expensive ingredients (and lacked at Iggy's, review below), treat the master ingredient as a master, but add creativity, combine flavours and play with the guests' senses. Well done, it was worth it!!!

After touching heaven we were back on the earth, tasting a grilled black grouper, which is a fish from New Zealand far from tender, with zucchini and zucchini flower, ginger, lentils, and veal and black pepper sauce. A perfect example of a "mountain and sea" dish, where a fish is combined with a meaty and spicy sauce to enhance and balance flavours. I did not become a fan of the black grouper, but the dish was well executed and the zucchini and ginger crunchy, this latter adding another layer of spiciness to the combination.

The meat main was a choice of one of three dishes: i ) slow cooked suckling pig; ii) slow cooked beef cheek; and iii) venison with chocolate sauce. We left the venison out (it was a hard decision). All three dishes were served with mushrooms, pure, jus from the respective meat and other details of which I could not identify. 

The suckling pig probably the best I ever tasted so far, slow cooked in the bone in its own juices. A mouth watering experience of contrasts, the tenderness of the suckling pig and its crunchy skin (just imagine the loud "crack" when inserting the knife through the crusted skin). 

The beef cheek did not need a knife, perfectly slow cooked and finalized in a pan fried where it was covered over and over again in its reduced jus. Tender, juicy and delicious were the words to describe it. Also one of the highest moments of the dinner.

A wide selection of cheeses came up to the table in a trolley and served to my wife, for me, a confessed non cheese lover, an apricot, marzipan and butter sponge cake with a scoop of apricot ice-cream.

A mouth cleanser of lemon zest ice-cream on top of pineapple and mint cream cleared officially (not for me) the way for the dessert.

A homage to apples serving them dehydrated, in gelatin mode or naturally, in different styles and textures. A good combination, not impressive though. 

Finally but not the least a wonderful plate of chocolate as petit fours. From the left to the right: Santi's Oreo, cannot remember but was alcoholic and has a kind of merengue on top, vanilla covered with a chocolate fried dough, chocolate milk and orange, and Opera chocolate. 

Thank you for such an exquisite, delicious and consistent meal. There were dishes better than other from a personal point if view, but altogether it was all perfectly cooked, with passion and attention to the detail. The pace of the meal excellent, the menu well structured and executed with high quality ingredients.

Wine list: N/A

Once again we put ourselves on the hands of the sommelier to choose the wines t go with the menu. That night was Gianni Bartolomeo an Italian sommelier who is leaving Santi in Singapore in search for a job in London, a great guy with whom we spent an enormous amount of time talking about wines and cuisine at the end of the dinner. We only drank a glass of champagne and a dessert wine, both very good picks by Gianni (thanks and good luck).  

Genre: Spanish/Catalonian/international modern cuisine

Price: approx. €185 / person

Michelin: N/A

Date of Visit: Autumn 2011

Overall: 18/20

Pros: Fine cuisine, wonderful combination of ingredients and flavors, the egg with white truffle, service (particularly Joan Lopez, Gianni Bartolomeo and the executive chef).

Cons: The décor is relaxed and relatively quiet, but it is hard to forget that it is located between a busy casino and a crowded shopping mall.

Santi

Level 2 of the Casino Atrium at the Marina Bay Sands.

Tel: (+65) 6688 8501