Odette Singapore is a French restaurant which opened in 2015 and has since been awarded three Michelin stars and regularly features in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Chef Owner Julien Royer named the restaurant after his grandmother, who taught him to cook and the importance of respecting produce.
Located in the Supreme Court Wing of the National Gallery Singapore, the restaurant seats up to 32 people in the main dining room, with a private dining room for an additional 12 diners.
Given my two and a half year pause in fine dining due to the pandemic with my last 3 star meal being Le Bernardin, I was very excited to experience one of Asia’s top restaurants.
In this post:
Odette Singapore Review
Passing through Odette’s front door and sheer curtain takes you into another world. The beautifully light colours of baby pinks and whites gave the restaurant a spacious and welcoming ambience.
Given I was dining on a Friday night, the restaurant was at full capacity and I was assigned one of four tables set up in the private dining room. With a much lower ceiling and a view of a wall, I was initially disappointed with the table. However, seeing how busy and lively the main dining room became later in the evening I actually preferred the serenity of my table.
Service began with a cold towel and your preference between still and sparkling water. I opted for the sparkling and perused the menu.
Odette Singapore Menu
The two dinner menu options at Odette were the vegetarian Nature et Découverte at S$328 and the flagship Epicure at S$428. With a strong focus on seafood, I opted for the Epicure menu but declined the additional lobster course.
Odette Singapore Food
Reading reviews of Odette prior to booking set expectations pretty high, yet the food easily exceeded these. Overall, the modern French cooking with Asian influences was balanced and generous.
Grignotages
The meal began with three small bites, with grignotages translating into snacks or nibbles.
What appeared to be a crinkle cut fry was actually made out of choux pastry and filled with cheese. Both the onion tart and the fish taco were light in flavour but with great texture to amuse the bouche.
Mushroom Tea
Next up was the mushroom tea, which is poured tableside and served with mushroom brioche. The mushroom soup with cep sabayon was beautifully warming and earthy, with the generous slices of black truffle being thick enough to have a slight crunch.
MARUKYO UNI – Red Sicilian prawn | Mussel cloud | Kristal caviar
Now we begin the 7 course menu proper with uni served two ways, on toast and with prawns and mussel mouse in the uni shell. Caviar is added theatrically tableside by the server.
This was a light and enjoyable dish with good flavours of the sea. Having the crunch of the uni toast was a nice contrast to the smoothness of the mousse.
CURED SHIMA AJI • Passion fruit | Pomelo | Black radish
Otherwise known as Striped Jack, the shima aji was incredibly fresh and served with a wonderful light sauce of passionfruit and pomelo. Crunch and visual appeal was added with black radish.
There was also an accompanying light bite of shima aji in seaweed, which was a great way of adding further Asian flavours and texture to the course.
ROSEMARY SMOKED ORGANIC EGG • Smoked potato syphon | Chorizo Iberico | Meunière
Up next is one of Odette’s signature dishes, the rosemary smoked organic egg. Brought to the table with great fanfare in a cloud of liquid nitrogen, the dish itself is at its heart a simple soft boiled egg and potato with chorizo for extra flavour.
But that simplicity translates into a genuinely warming, comforting and memorable dish.
The glass dome is itself smoky, with smouldering hay underneath to produce a lovely bucolic aroma, perhaps a nod to Chef Royer’s home of Auvergne?
SEAWEED BUTTER GLAZED SCALLOP • Nori | Menton lemon | Sauce perle
In a word, stunning. The perfectly cooked giant Scottish scallop was the best scallop dish I’ve eaten since Beige (the Chanel/Alain Ducasse restaurant in Tokyo) in 2009. While you can get as much scallop by using 2-3 smaller scallops, you can not replicate the thickness of a larger scallop which gives an incredibly luxurious chew.
The pearls and sauce accompanied the scallop perfectly, not too creamy with the Menton lemon for balance and again with a nod to Asia with the inclusion of nori.
BASQUE COUNTRY MONKFISH • Zucchini flower | Obsiblue prawn | Saffron
A large portion of the monkfish is first presented tableside, then returned to the kitchen for plating. The plate is delivered by a chef, who explains the dish and adds the saffron sauce.
While the monkfish was excellent and actually had the texture of lobster, it was the saffron sauce that was the showstopper. Incredibly aromatic and deeply flavoursome, it was like an elevated seafood bisque.
I wasn’t about to waste any of that sauce so I used the truffle bread and sourdough to mop up.
KAMPOT PEPPER CRUSTED PIGEON • Barley | Almond | Amaretto
Another of Chef Royer’s signature dishes is the kampot pepper crusted pigeon, which is presented whole then returned to the kitchen for plating.
Given the stronger flavour of pigeon, a glass of red was in order and I went with the 2013 Domaine Barge Cote Rotie Le Combard, which was the wine pairing from this course. Served chilled and in a Zalto glass, it was a quality wine from the Rhone to go with the pigeon.
Served medium, the pigeon was not as gamey as feared and was beautifully complemented by the kampot peppers from Cambodia. A gyoza with heart and liver mash was rather too strong for my taste.
The sauce and cherries worked well to balance out the richness of the pigeon. Chef Royer also adds a note to the diner.
Apple & Mint
Bridging the mains and desserts was a delightful apple and mint palate cleanser that was refreshing and again had a bit of crunch through the small cubes of apple.
Tea orders are also taken at this point, with a herbal selection brought to the table. I went with the house blend.
“COMME UN BUENO” • Millot chocolat “Pure Plantation” | Hazelnut | Caramel
Inspired by the humble Kinder Bueno, the dessert was suitably chocolatey with the hazelnuts coming through nicely. Clearly, this dessert is based on the European version of Nutella.
Tempered chocolate adds a bit of texture to the ice cream and completes a refreshing and balanced dessert. Critical at this point in the meal after 7 formal and multiple informal courses.
Douceurs
With dessert done, the herbal tea is delivered and is exceptional. A blend of a number of herbs, which I’ve forgotten, the early ordering ensures the tissane has time to steep before being brought out in time for the petit fours.
The recommendation is to work your way clockwise from the cold apple lollipop, through the very best Japanese fruit (including an amazingly sweet honeydew) and then the incredibly airy and borderline crispy canele de bordeaux (incidentally a signature at Le Bernardin also).
Odette Singapore Service
Service throughout the meal was excellent with two primary servers assigned to the private dining room, and joined by chefs from the kitchen for specific dishes. The team found the right balance between formal and friendly for each table, and tailored their approach to the guests.
The chef who delivered the scallop course was happy to chat about the dish and how they came up with the sauce, how the source of the scallops shifts between different parts of Scotland etc. It was one of the service elements I enjoyed most at Blue Hill at Stone Barns.
And as a parting gift, diners are given a take home treat of freshly made strawberry jam.
How To Book A Table At Odette Singapore?
Bookings open 60 days in advance and can be booked directly via the Odette website. Unlike some fine dining restaurants, Odette was happy to accommodate a solo diner without needing to call up nor dine at an off peak time.
How Many Michelin Stars Does Odette Singapore Have?
Odette holds the top 3 Michelin Star rating in the 2021 Singapore Guide. It’s also rated at #8 in the Top 50 Restaurants list.
From my dinner experience, Odette has very much earned these two accolades.
Odette Singapore Bottom Line
Odette Singapore is a wonderful example of modern destination dining with excellent food and service, living up to its 3 Michelin Star rating.
