“To meat or not to meat,” bellows Dario Cecchini at the opening of Bottega di Carna at the ultra-chic Mondrian Singapore Duxton. Dubbed the World’s Greatest Butcher by the New York Times, the Tuscan meat maverick brings with him eight generations of butchering experience to fire up the dining scene in the little red dot.
“A butcher knows the alphabet of meat, a chef with that alphabet can write poetry,” shares the star in the popular Netflix Chef’s Table series. And that is where executive chef Alastair Clayton (formerly from Restaurant Gordon Ramsay) and chef de cuisine Kenny Huang (formerly from 28Wilkie) come into play at the newly minted restaurant.
Expect the unexpected when it comes to dining in Bottega di Carna – think creative handmade pastas, inventive crudos and charcuterie, flame-kissed meats, luscious seafood, and even a bold range of progressive wines to pair. While Cecchini isn’t afraid to be all playful and progressive with his cuts, when it comes to honouring the animal, he remains respectful and reverential.
“You must guarantee the animal a good life and a dignified death, and use every part of the animal well. What began as economic necessity is now an ethical imperative. We should leave this world a little bit better than we found it,” he preaches.
Make sure to try the chunky beef knees, gently boiled till fall off the bone and paired with tangy pickled tenerumi vegetables and broth, or the showstopping steaks straight out of the Josper. We also enjoyed a L’Etusco Steak, a special cut that features a longer bone than the average T-bone steak, which is lean yet unbelievably tender and comes sporting a perfectly charred bark.
Cechinni’s steak tartare was unlike any other too. His signature plate melds together select beef with smoked paprika, herbal salt and his famed “green gold” olive oil. The intentional rough chop alludes to a chewier but no less tender bite that truly accentuates the quality of the selected beef.
Other outstanding dishes include a dainty tart that comes bejewelled with textures of artichoke, creamy goat cheese and acacia honey, fluffy doughnut topped with marbled strips of San Daniele ham, and crisp zucchini noodles with fresh basil pesto.
Apart from the action that goes on in the open-concept kitchen, the posh restaurant is also accompanied by a congenial crew and a cavernous dining room flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows offering views of the verdant outdoor garden.
When asked why to pick Singapore as his next destination, the Dante-spewing maverick shared an encounter with a plate of Hainanese chicken rice. “I always try to understand a culture by its street food, what the roots are, what the people eat. And after having a lovely plate of chicken rice, I understood that yes, this is going to be a success. The people of Singapore already have in their DNA this innate sense that it is important to use everything from the animal well,” he affirms.
And having cooked for everyone from the likes of Anthony Bourdain and Elton John to even King Charles III, Dario Cecchini’s foundation is certainly unshakable. Reservations are now open.
