As one of the top picks on our list of favourite restaurants, we say Odette is the best special occasion restaurant in Singapore… And here's why you should be excited about it
Odette is one of those rare places you walk into excited. And one of those very rare places you walk out of excited. I’m excited just sitting here writing about it months after my last visit. (I get a similar buzz remembering my first and only bungee jump eight years ago – which despite an epic hangover, being tied by the feet to my wife and a good minute to two minutes of hanging upside down post-jump with said epic hangover, still gives me a rush.) One of our hottest tables just claimed the No 5 spot and title of Best Restaurant in Singapore at Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards 2015, and nobody around here is surprised.
The reasons why I love it…
At Odette, Chef Julien Royer pulls off the elusive mix of imagination and flavour. The ten-or-so courses are inventive and playful, but always and predominantly flavourful – as in, stop the degustation and give me another three Mushroom Teas flavourful.
It’s not cheap – rightly so – and is not likely to be a lazy Wednesday ‘let’s go out rather than cook today type’ option. (Although – long aside – I can highly recommend the spontaneous degustation; we once sat down to 10 courses at 9.30pm after walking into a hatted Sydney restaurant without a reservation, and having gotten through just 6 courses by midnight, we asked, and were permitted, to return the following night to finish the remaining 4. And yes, the impulsive thrill of the whole thing more than made up for the bill.)
But Odette is far and away my pick for a special occasion blowout dinner in Singapore.
The signature dish
Naturally, the Rosemary Smoked Organic Egg. An elegant and sublime fry up of iberico chorizo, smoked potato, toasted buckwheat and voluptuous smoke-poached eggs. It is served, of course, in an egg carton with plumes of rosemary smoke. Reminiscent of all the best English breakfasts you’ve ever had, but endlessly, insanely better.
There’s also the Pigeon ‘Fabien Deneour’ 3 Services, BBQ, confit, and parfait, which if you like pigeon – and I love pigeon – is just a wonderful combination of texture and flavour with rich roasted skin, deep gamey meat and enveloping parfait.
Oh … And the Heirloom Beetroot Variation with the standout salt-baked beetroot with explosions of burrata and sorbet and meringue … And the canapes, ah those canapes.
In five words…
Bah! Screw the special occasion!
Odette, 1 Saint Andrew’s Road, #01-04 National Gallery Singapore, Singapore 178957. p. 6385 0498; Open Tue-Sat 12pm-1.30pm 7pm-9pm, Mon 7pm-9pm. Closed on Sun.