Old Meets New

These new restaurants strike a balance between exploring new frontiers and honouring the time-tested culinary playbook.

- ALVIN LIM

AN ASIAN ODYSSEY

Singaporean chef Ace Tan looks back to his roots for his latest restaurant outing in Asu, taking treasured food memories from his family's matriarchs and the nutritive ingredients of Chinese medicinal traditions and applying more than 16 years of service in Korean, Japanese and Asian kitchens to them. The result - progressive takes on achingly familiar fare that purport to be as healthful as they are tasty, rotating twice every season for freshness.

The debut Origins menu serves as a culmination of Tan's culinary journey, with flairs like a reimagined Fuzhou oyster cake - steamed instead of deep-fried, featuring oysters and pork jowl-marinated in housebrewed oyster sauce - drawing from his childhood memories. There's also an elevated version of salted duck soup, where the shredded bird is stuffed within skinned Japanese Amela tomatoes, served cold in Tan's suitably monastic 25-seater hidden on the grounds of the Labrador Nature Reserve. 30 Labrador Villa Rd

DUTCH TOUCH