Beyond The Plate

In Singapore, a new dining experience dishes up food for thought, with a curated, multi-sensorial approach.

- Denise Kok

The men SAT around the record player in silence, letting the surging riffs of John Coltrane’s saxophone solo trail into the chorus before one of them exclaimed: “Woah! Did you hear that?” Such was a scene from Ivan Brehm’s childhood, where weekends were spent in the company of his grandfather and friends, audiophiles who revered the discography of Miles Davis and Astor Piazzolla as much as they did the stately recordings of classical maestros. “I’ll never forget watching those grown-up men carry a drink in their hands and not speak for an hour while listening to an entire album,” recalls Brehm, the 36-year-old chef and owner of one-Michelin starred restaurant Nouri.

Attuned at a young age to the aural pleasures of a sophisticated stereo system, Brehm moves with ease as he draws a vinyl record from its sleeve, sets it on the turntable and nudges the stylus into place. As the music of A-Wa — a trio of Israeli sisters who combine traditional Yemeni music with modern hip-hop elements — begins to play, Brehm settles into a low-slung armchair, a prime perch (acoustics-wise) that also offers a full view of an audio set-up his grandfather would approve of: Limited edition ATC speakers flank a futuristic Wilson Benesch turntable, a handmade analogue Condesa rotary mixer, and vacuum tube operated Jadis preamplifiers that hark back to the electronic stylings of World War II. No fewer than 3,000 records, illuminated by cove lights, form a shrine of sorts to musical genres spanning Motown to world music.

This well-calibrated listening room is but one limb of Appetite, a 2,000 square-foot multiconcept space that is also part art gallery and part restaurant. Nouri, the fine dining concept owned by Brehm, sits on the ground floor of the same heritage shophouse.