Pic, who is best known for running her family’s 130-year-old three-MICHELIN-starred restaurant, Maison Pic in Valence in south-east France, is making her debut in Asia in the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. La Dame de Pic is the first celebrity restaurant to open in the historic luxury hotel, which will be fully opened to the public on 1 August after an extensive 1½-year refurbishment.
The chic 46-seat restaurant features pastel-pink hued walls, plum-coloured seating and vases of peonies, which is Pic’s favourite flower. Also reflecting this is the tall ceiling, which is adorned with peony-designed bas relief. In the heart of the restaurant is a visually arresting gold chandelier composed of cascading discs designed with spades, which is a play on the restaurant’s name that translates to “queen of spade” in English.
Cuisine-wise, her contemporary French dishes are imbued with light, bright and citrus flavours, and peppered with herbs and flowers.
Speaking to the MICHELIN Guide Digital separately last week, Pic calls her third La Dame de Pic restaurant (the first two are in Paris and London) her most feminine restaurant yet. After cooking for 25 years, she has become more confident in expressing her personality and touch through her restaurants and food.
80% Of La Dame de Pic Dishes Are New
Pic is no stranger to Asian ingredients and flavours, being known to incorporate them into French dishes. At a recent media luncheon, Asian influences, mainly herbs and spices, are liberally sprinkled and infused in her dishes.
At La Dame de Pic in Singapore, about 80% of the dishes are new, with half of them with Asian touches. Her signature dish, Berlingots, which are pyramid-shaped matcha-flavoured pasta and named after the French hard caramel candy, have an exclusive-to-Singapore flavour. The pasta parcels are stuffed with molten French fondue cheese and drenched in a vegetal and tangy consomme concocted with green zebra tomato and herb-of-grace (a medicinal herb known as chou cao in Chinese) that is found in markets here.
Prices for the lunch menus start from $128++ and dinner menus start from $198++.
The idea was sparked by chef de cuisine Kevin Gatin, who has been Pic’s protege for more than eight years and worked at Pic’s two-MICHELIN-starred restaurant in Lausanne. He toyed with the idea after he came across the mould at the hotel’s Chinese kitchen, which is located next to the La Dame de Pic Kitchen.
The duo has been hard at work developing dishes with newfangled flavour and aroma combinations over the past few months. Gatin spent a month at Maison Pic’s research kitchen in Valance, bringing a luggage filled with ingredients from Singapore.
She recounts: “We had such an amazing time creating flavours and infusions. I learnt about chou cao, which tastes similar to asperula, a herb from my universe, and I like ginger flower so much that I’ve made a cream with it for the White Mille-feuille. Some of these ingredients are still ‘sleeping’ but we will integrate them in the menu soon.”
Having a restaurant in Singapore has deepened Pic’s love for Asian herbs and spices. During her week-long stay in Singapore, she visited the wet market in Chinatown twice, immersing herself in the sights and scents of the bustling vegetable stalls.
“I’ve been waking up early to go to the market,” she says with a sheepish smile. “When I am there, I am just taking photos of all the vegetables, absorbing the sights and buying a lot of products.” She also managed to take in the heady spice aromas at Anthony Spice Maker shop in Chinatown and checking out spices such as cinnamon, yellow ginger and galangal. With rapid-fire creativity, she has already made sorbets and syrups from these spices.
It is the same whenever and wherever Pic travels. She adds jokingly: “I will always go to the markets to search and buy new products, so much that my husband can be fed up.” Her husband, David Sinapian, is the chief executive of Anne Sophie Pic group of restaurants that comprises 10 eateries and a cooking school, and employs around 350 staff.
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Other upcoming celebrity restaurant openings in the hotel include Chinese restaurant yì by Jereme Leung, which is slated to open in August, while BBR by Alain Ducasse is slated to open in September.
These days, Sinapian takes care of the business side of things, while Pic takes charge of the creative department. When asked about La Dame de Pic’s place in a competitive dining landscape filled with French restaurants, Pic says: “Part of the restaurant’s stand-out point is its historic location in Raffles Hotel, but I also hope to complement Singapore’s dining offerings with my style.”
Doing It Her Way To Preserve The Pic Family Legacy
Pic has also carved an unconventional route to the kitchen. She was born into a long lineage of accomplished chefs — her grandfather Andre led Maison Pic to three MICHELIN stars in 1934 and her father Jacques worked his way to regain the three MICHELIN stars distinction.
However, Pic did not harbour dreams of becoming a chef and opted to study business management instead. During an internship, a colleague asked her why she wanted to work there when she could head the family brand. That planted the idea of working in her family’s restaurant and she eventually took over the reins in 1997.
Asked about what is her proudest contribution to her family’s culinary history which started in 1889, Pic points out that how each generation
And it helps that Pic’s 13-year-old son Nathan has a keen interest in cooking, especially in pastry. However, she is keeping her options open on if she would like her son to join the family business. “It is too early to say, but I will definitely want to teach him about cuisine and pass him my knowledge.”
