[image]
[title]
Jamie's Italian
The naked chef has stripped the prices of the food down at Jamie’s Italian so you don’t have to choose between a shopping splurge at Orchard Road or eating more than grass. You can have a S$12.50 (about RM32) Turbo Penne Arrabiata and go home a happy customer, having eaten satisfyingly tummy-filling pasta at a Jamie Oliver restaurant for less than the price of two fast food value meals.
True to Jamie’s fervent advocacy for healthy food preparation (with the exception of core supplies such as the flour used to make the house-made pastas), the majority of the produce is sourced from neighbouring countries with a focus on freshness, responsible sourcing and sustainability. Ironically, the best items here are the sinful ones – the desserts. The panna cotta with berry compote and the epic brownie are both worth hashtagging #todiefor.
1 HarbourFront Walk, VivoCity (+65 67335500/www.jamieoliver.com/italian/singapore).
Sky on 57
For a special occasion during your trip, you’re going to need to upsize the budget. Sky on 57 is on the 57th floor of the iconic Marina Bay Sands and patrons get to enjoy the same breathtaking views of the Singapore skyline as those paying S$23 (about RM58) to go up to the Sky Park observatory deck. So consider that a discount on your S$50 (about RM126) three-course set lunch (available every day) at one of the finest restaurants in town. There are options for familiar main dishes such as rice vermicelli with hokkaido scallops or a finer lamb cutlet with eggplant purée. It’s run by Justin Quek, one of Asia’s most celebrated chefs, and the Franco-Asian cuisine shows his forte in marrying premium ingredients with classical finesse. For those who don’t give a hoot about food, the grand alfresco area is a great spot for a post-meal selfie.
Tower 1 Marina Bay Sands Hotel, 10 Bayfront Avenue (+65 6688 8868/www.justinquek.com/sky57.html).
HY California By Hide Yamamoto
The difference between an exquisite sushi place and an average one is often in the restaurant’s ability to get first dibs on the freshest ingredients. This requires connections, of which Chef Hide Yamamoto has plenty. The man was the chief executive chef of Mandarin Oriental Tokyo, which became the first hotel in the world to have three separate Michelin-starred restaurants. He also had the honour of leading the team that prepared food at the inauguration parties of three US presidents – Reagan, Bush and Clinton.
While Hide Yamamoto’s namesake restaurant in Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands averages S$200 (about RM505) per person a meal, the more casual HY California serves up simpler cuisine that offers the same level of freshness and inventiveness. With prices that range from S$16 (about RM40) for the Japanese fried chicken bento set or $24 (about RM60) for the Australian wagyu beef burger, they’ve certainly got Sakae Sushi beat. Come for designer sushi at outlet prices (sort of).
2 Bayfront Avenue, Marina Bay Sands, #01-86 (+65 6688 7426/www.hideyamamoto.com/california.html).
Salt Tapas & Bar by Luke Mangan
You may recognise Chef Luke Mangan from MasterChef Australia or from one of his best-selling cookbooks. While he’s good for ratings and bestseller lists, he also has a string of hit restaurants outside of Australia, in Jakarta, Bali, Tokyo and Singapore. Luke is classically French trained but thankfully does food the way Asians and Aussies like it: sizeable portions and bold flavours. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just eaten, nothing says ‘vacay’ like tapas between meals, so order the mouth-watering S$13 (about RM33) pork belly sliders with pickled cucumber and chilli or S$12 (about RM30) chorizo tapas. For those with bigger appetites, the S$18 (about RM45) pork ribs offer a delicious and affordable way to experience the work of a celebrity chef without breaking the bank – unless you consider Colonel Sanders a celebrity chef.
#01-22A, Raffl es City Shopping Centre 252, North Bridge Road (+65 6837 0995/salttapas.com).
Tim Ho Wan
Chef Mak Kwai Pui’s dim sum restaurant in Hong Kong has earned the reputation of being the world’s cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant. Tim Ho Wan’s Singapore outposts serve the same delicious traditional Cantonese dim sum items at affordable prices, except it’s no longer a grubby hole-in-the-wall kind of establishment.
At the top of the to-try-list are the ‘Four Heavenly Kings’. Order a few freshly baked barbecue pork buns with their delicate crispy skin, soft pillowy pastry and perfectly balanced sweet and salty barbecue pork filling. Follow them up with vermicelli rolls aka ‘cheong fun’ with pig liver (if you’re into that sort of thing), steamed egg cakes and pan-fried carrot cake. Repeat until full. Tim Ho Wan has four outlets around Singapore so you’re never too far from one. Queuing time stretches to over an hour so try to hit the outlet before or after peak dining hours.
68 Orchard Road #01-29A Plaza Singapura (+65 6251 2000/www.timhowan.com).
Affordable celebrity chef restaurants in Singapore
Here are five celebrity chef restaurants almost anyone can afford, so you can stop worrying about the SGD-to-RM maths problem
Advertising
You may also like
You may also like
Discover Time Out original video
Advertising