A Sake for Singapore

Local food champion chef Willin Low has developed Rasen, a blended sake that pairs well with Singapore dishes such as oyster omelette, satay, and laksa.

- DANNON HAR

Chef Willin Low is best known for putting Mod-Sin (short for modern Singaporean) cuisine on the world’s culinary map. Think dishes such as laksa pesto linguine and pandan panna cotta with gula melaka served at his now-defunct restaurant, Wild Rocket.

However, not many people know that the 51-year-old, who runs casual restaurant Relish and is relaunching Roketto Izakaya later this year, is also a bona fide sake professional.

Since 2015, Low has been certified as an Advanced Sake Professional, the highest qualification offered by The Sake Education Council — the first primarily English language-based international body that promotes sake education outside Japan.

He is putting this qualification to good use with the launch of Rasen, a blended sake produced in collaboration with Yaegaki, a sake brewery in Hyogo Prefecture. Rasen, which means ‘spiral’ in Japanese, represents the coming together of two cultures — Singapore and Japan — to create a harmonious collaboration. Established in 1666, the brewery has made major leaps in sake innovation, including inventing fermentation and koji machines that modernised sake-making in the early 1900s.

While most sake is blended behind closed doors, blended sake has come into a category of its own recently thanks to renowned personalities who craft the blends. One of them is Richard Geoffroy, the chef de cave of champagne house Dom Perignon, who started Iwa 5 in 2019.