Restaurant André

41 Bukit Pasoh Rd, Singapore

Born in Taiwan, based in Singapore’s Chinatown, André Chiang learned his craft working for the likes of Jean-Michel Lorain, Joël Robuchon and Pierre Gagnaire. He’s moved on. His no-choice, eight-course, table d’hôte hangs by tenuous pegs: ‘unique’, ‘pure’, ‘texture’, ‘memory’, ‘salt’, ‘South’, ‘artisan’ and ‘terroir’. His ‘pure’ plates (read: no-cooking, no-seasoning, leaving the produce to speak for itself) shows where his priorities lie – with quality ingredients above all else. But based on an island without agriculture, he can’t claim, like Noma’s René Redzepi, to be drawing on regional produce. Instead he’s shipping in heirloom tomatoes, Japanese Wagyu beef, Maldon salt – whatever he needs to create a cuisine d’auteur. André puts together a spectacularly pretty plate. Purple cauliflower gives a lavender tint to a shellfish broth. An oyster hovers in a seaweed jelly. A bantam Black Leg hen’s egg is redolent of Périgord truffle. It’s very clever, very imaginative and very expensive. Change from £200 per head? Possibly.