Art Di Daniele Sperindio

A successful meal, in my book, builds to a crescendo, and then leaves me wanting more.

Most times, however, I am wowed by the snacks and starters, and then there is a pronounced dip at the main course. It is as if the kitchen has lost steam, and what comes out is not as compelling as what came before.

Sometimes, the restaurant picks up the pace and delivers a brilliant dessert. Sometimes, it does not.

There are no dips at Art di Daniele Sperindio at the National Gallery Singapore.

Chef Daniele Sperindio, 36, is now chef-owner of the one-Michelin-starred restaurant, and the renaming from Art reflects that change. I kick myself for not having dined there earlier because my first meal leaves me wanting more.

The new menu (dinner is $298 a person for seven courses, lunch is $138 for four courses and $158 for five courses) starts on a high note with snacks, the best of which is chutoro tonnato, which takes the classic Italian dish of vitello tonnato and flips it.

Instead of topping slices of veal with tuna sauce, the chef coats cubes of raw fatty tuna with veal sauce and adds Japanese strawberries for acidity and brightness. It is served in a thin tart shell.

Feeling reckless, I finish every crumb of the bread course. Art’s housemade sourdough has a thin, crackly crust and lightly chewy crumb that is a joy to eat with lashings of Alpine butter. I find myself mopping up lemon-infused olive oil with the ciabatta.

The recklessness continues in the pasta course, featuring a rich taglierini made with 32 egg yolks for every kilogramme of flour. Seafood stock, bottarga shavings, parsley butter and olive puree up the umami quotient.

Then, more compelling carbs. This time, housemade focaccia for a course called Scarpetta, which all gravy-loving Singaporeans know well. It is the Italian (well, also universal) practice of mopping up sauces with bread.

This course pays tribute to the Liguria region, where the chef is from. Use the Ligurian focaccia to mop up three traditional sauces – meat, pesto and parmigiano.

I wait for the dip. It never comes. As good as the preceding courses are, the main course shines.

The Maimoa lamb is from New Zealand, but the presentation is pure Italy. The lightly cooked pink lamb is rolled up with wild garlic leaves with two “stuffings”, a green one made with fir and a white one with chicken skin. All the colours of the Italian flag.

Served alongside, a fat white asparagus spear coated with green asparagus veloute, and a masala sauce. You know you are eating lamb, but the flavour is delicate, not overpowering. It is so good, I finish all of it, and long for more of that focaccia to scarpetta what is left on the plate.

The transition back to the real world is made easy with buffalo milk gelato, cacao nibs and a drizzle of 40-year-old balsamic vinegar. Parting, like dessert, is bittersweet.

Where: 06-02 National Gallery Singapore, 1 St Andrew’s Road
MRT: City Hall
Tel: 6866-1977
Info: artdidanielesperindio.com

808 Eating House

When I dine out with friends, I let them decide where we eat. They are very knowledgeable and very particular about food. They, quite frankly, scare me.

However, I have no performance anxiety about suggesting dinner at 808 Eating House. I had written about chef Eugene Chee’s restaurant and the couple of things I tasted after the interview and photo-taking made me sit up and take notice.

Our meal there is smashing, full of bold flavours. The 30-year-old, who has worked at Atelier Crenn and Bar Crenn in San Francisco, pulls no punches.

Never to be taken off the menu is Pickled Quail Eggs ($6), which nails the flavours of vinegared pig trotters. It is the perfect starter, perking up the appetite.

Do not pass on the Duck Fat Financiers ($10), tiny but rich and made to be topped lavishly with the accompanying chicken liver mousse.

You Mai Cai ($12) is very crisp, juiced up with pandan oil. The prawn and coconut floss topping makes the dish. If all vegetables tasted this good, I would eat more of them.

Large and juicy are Sweet XL Clams ($24), cooked in huatiao broth just right so the edges are springy and the middle bursts like a fat bubble oozing creaminess.

From the Big Plates list, go for Mouth Watering Chicken ($22), which lives up to its name.

I never bother ordering chicken breast, but 808’s version is tender, not dried out and a fine blank canvas for Sichuan chilli oil and toasted peanuts. I still wish they would use chicken thigh though.

Another good one is Buah Keluak Pork Belly ($26), properly punchy and served with achar, serundeng and a sprinkling of aromatic ginger flower. In retrospect, we should have ordered Fried Bao Buns ($6) for mopping-up operations.

Instead, we have multiple orders of Cold Bee Hoon ($6), rice vermicelli tossed with shallot oil, shio kombu, chives and tiny dried shrimp. It is not just a side dish, an after-thought. It really is good enough to eat on its own.

Good ingredients from South-east Asia used imaginatively is what 808 Eating House is about. I cannot wait for the next menu change. But those pickled eggs better still be on the menu.

Where: 153 Joo Chiat Road
MRT: Paya Lebar
Tel: 8946-8089
Open: Noon to 3pm, 6 to 11pm, Tuesdays to Sundays. Closed on Mondays
Info: www.808eatinghouse.com

Just Julia

Bookmarking, making mental notes, taking screenshots – there are many ways I tell myself to make this recipe or that. Often though, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. I go so far as to buy the ingredients, but sometimes do not follow through.

When I see food writer Eric Kim’s recipe for Gochujang Caramel Cookies in The New York Times, I put it on my to-make list. I do not even have to shop for ingredients – I have them all.

Laziness set in, predictably.

Baker Julia Tan, 32, of Just Julia, a bake shop in Cavan Road, has just let me off the hook and come to my rescue. Her latest box of bakes, the aptly named SOS Box v5, features a version of that cookie.

It is fantastic. Chewy, sticky and mildly spicy, it is the salty-sweet cookie of my dreams.

There are two of them in the $26 box. Other treats include three each of Roasted Rice Tea Caramel Sandwich Cookies and Ovaltine Caramel Sandwich Cookies; 12 aromatic Roasted Sesame Sables, 12 very crunchy Pecan Praline Cornflake Cookies; and Blueberry Cobbler.

She is now taking pre-orders for delivery on June 30.

If you want to focus, order the Caramelised Gochujang Cookies at $4.50 each or the cornflake cookies at $12 for 40.

This pretty much guarantees I will never make those cookies, I think.

Info: To order, go to justjulia.cococart.co. Delivery costs $13, and self-collection for pre-orders is at 01-08, 11 Cavan Road. The store is not open for walk-ins.