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For upscale Japanese food without fuss and formality, head to pop-up restaurant Kou
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(Clockwise from left) Hiyamugi noodles in duck dashi with smoked duck, Nori rolls filled with firefly squid and chopped fatty tuna, and Abalone Pithivier at Kou.
PHOTOS: KOU
- Chef Tan Kian Hong runs Kou, a Japanese-French pop-up restaurant on Sundays and Mondays at Ichigo Ichie until July 2026.
- Kou offers multi-course meals featuring seasonal ingredients, with standouts including mochi rolls and abalone pithivier.
- A highlight is the sushi course, particularly the crunch seaweed handrolls filled with firefly squid and fatty tuna.
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SINGAPORE – With many restaurants operating five days a week, could the idea of a restaurant within a restaurant be something to watch in 2026?
Take Japanese kappo restaurant Ichigo Ichie at Claymore Connect. On Sundays and Mondays, when it is closed, Kou pops up there, offering multi-course meals built around seasonal ingredients.
At the helm is Singaporean chef Tan Kian Hong, who works at Ichigo Ichie three days a week, and runs Kou the rest of the time.
The 34-year-old, who has worked at Beni and Wagyu Jin, says he wants diners to be able to relax while enjoying his Japanese-French comfort food without contending with the strict rules of engagement some fine-dining Japanese establishments have.
He offers an eight-course menu priced at $188 a person at lunch and dinner. For lunch, there is also a five-course menu priced at $88 a person.
My dinner there hits so many high notes.
Standouts include mochi bread rolls served with three compound butters: sea urchin, shio kombu and, the best one, fukinoto. It is made with Japanese butterbur buds, a seasonal sansai or mountain vegetable with a delightfully funky flavour.
More sansai – urui and nanohana – turn up on lightly smoked king salmon with sweet white asparagus, with pep from ponzu and crunch from tonburi, seeds from the summer cypress that the Japanese call land caviar.
The French accent is most striking in the abalone course. It comes in the form of a pithivier, a domed pie made with puff pastry. Chef Tan cuts it in half and the cross-section is beautiful and delicious – fish mousse studded with chunks of juicy abalone. The Japanese accent in the red wine sauce is the abalone liver added to it.
Even the noodles are special at Kou. The chef says the Hiyamugi noodles he serves are made with a mix of wheat and rice flours, then aged three years. My friends and I think immediately of all the noodles we have been “ageing” unintentionally in our pantries.
When we do finally cook them, will they be as delightfully chewy as the ones he serves in a deeply flavourful duck dashi? I find the noodle and soup more compelling than the smoked duck breast topped with onion marmalade served alongside. And, yes, you can have more noodles and soup if you want.
The best course, however, is the sushi one that comes early in the meal. Two tiny, one-bite temaki or handrolls appear. One is filled with hotaru ika or firefly squid, and the other is filled with chopped-up otoro or fatty tuna.
I make haste with the photographs because I think the seaweed will wilt. But when I eat it, there is nothing but phenomenal crunch. Somehow, he has made humidity-proof nori. Trade secret, he says, when we press him on how.
Kou is expected to run until late July. I hope the seaweed rolls, filled with all manner of other things, stay on the menu. It might well be the best thing I eat in 2026.
Where: Kou pop-up at Ichigo Ichie, 01-16/17 Claymore Connect, 442 Orchard Road
MRT: Orchard
Open: Noon and 7pm (Sundays and Mondays) until July
Info: To book, go to @kou.sgp on Instagram
