Best eats of 2024: Best high-end restaurant – Somma
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Where: 04-02 New Bahru (Big Block), 46 Kim Yam Road somma.world
Open: Restaurant: 6 to 10.30pm (Wednesdays to Saturdays), closed on Sundays to Tuesdays; bar: 6 to 11pm (Tuesdays to Thursdays), 6pm to midnight (Fridays to Saturdays), closed on Sundays and Mondays
Info: Call 9756-1590 or go to
With diners tightening their belts, new fine-dining debuts were few and far between in 2024. Those that launched played it safe, offering predictable menus that failed to make a splash.
Enter Somma, the modern Italian restaurant that offers so much more than the slew of pizza and pasta eateries dishing out comfort carbs.
Set up in the old school library of the former Nan Chiau High School-turned-hip enclave New Bahru, Somma also has a more casual 56-seat cocktail bar, research laboratory and cooking school for public masterclasses.
Four years in the making, the three-month-old Somma – which means ”sum” in Italian – is the culmination of Puglian chef-partner Mirko Febbrile’s dream restaurant and journey as a chef.
It shows in every morsel of the 36-seat fine-dining experience, right from when you open the doors and are greeted enthusiastically by the team. Dinner is priced at $258++ for six courses, with optional add-on dishes and alcohol (add $178) or non-alcohol (add $88) pairing.
For that, you savour snacks at different stations in the open kitchen, and perhaps add on a cheese tasting ($45) – in which each Italian or Puglian cheese is directly sourced and customised for Somma.
The Bluefalo, for example, is a 100 day-aged buffalo milk cheese from Lombardy treated with leftover coffee grounds from staff meals, whiskey and candied pears. It is then aged in Singapore for another 39 days.
Somma's spaghettone with mantis shrimp bisque, sea snails and carrot scoby.
PHOTO: SOMMA
Standout dishes include an impressive spaghettone made with a red carrot sauce, reduced from 20kg of carrots, and mantis shrimp bisque. The dish is paired with slivers of sea snails and carrot scoby, made with leftover pulp after juicing, dressed in a sour sauce of black mint and Osetra caviar.
The visually striking pig snout (add on $44) is another example of the chef’s way with ingredients. This oft-overlooked part of the pig is braised into an unctuous delight.
On the whole, the dishes stay true to Febbrile’s zeal to present his homeland’s finest, and show his ability to elevate everyday produce without being ostentatious.
Overall well worth the wait, it is a refreshing addition to home-grown hospitality company The Lo & Behold Group’s portfolio of high-profile restaurants, including the three-Michelin-starred French establishment Odette and one-Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant Esora.
Almost definitely the group’s next star in the making.
Somma’s leadership team: (From left) Chef-partner Mirko Febbrile, director of operations Vincenzo Donatiello, director of pastry Jeanette Ow, bar manager Mel John G. Chavez and head of research and development Loris Caporizzi.
PHOTO: SOMMA
