Meanwhile, the 5th Quarter, also under the Unlisted group, has vacated its premises within the Vagabond Hotel in Little India. It will re-open on 12 June under a new name Salted and Hung, in a unit just opposite the trendy Clinton Street Baking Company on restaurant-lined Purvis Street. Though the downsized new venue will seat only 40 (versus its previous 70), it will bear the Unlisted Collection's hallmark vintage interiors, and - in keeping with head chef Andrew Nocente's meat-centric cooking - quirky porcine accents throughout the space.
Changes are also brewing at the Spa Esprit Group, which will be uprooting its modern Asian small-plates eatery and cocktail bar Ding Dong and Argentinean restaurant Bochinche from their Ann Siang Hill and Martin Road venues respectively to adjacent units along Amoy Street, right next to the upcoming Employees Only cocktail bar. The popular establishments are expected to relocate sometime in June. Though the new Bochinche will be much smaller in size compared to its sprawling 200-seater second-floor Martin Road space, their street-facing new digs in the heart of Tanjong Pagar will allow them to expand on lunch offerings catered to the CBD crowd.
Changes are also brewing at the Spa Esprit Group, which will be uprooting its modern Asian small-plates eatery and cocktail bar Ding Dong and Argentinean restaurant Bochinche from their Ann Siang Hill and Martin Road venues respectively to adjacent units along Amoy Street, right next to the upcoming Employees Only cocktail bar. The popular establishments are expected to relocate sometime in June. Though the new Bochinche will be much smaller in size compared to its sprawling 200-seater second-floor Martin Road space, their street-facing new digs in the heart of Tanjong Pagar will allow them to expand on lunch offerings catered to the CBD crowd.
Over at the Mandarin Gallery on Orchard Road, contemporary sushi bar Hashida Sushi and French-Japanese fine-dining restaurant Beni will do a little switcheroo come June and July. Both were opened in 2013 and 2015 respectively by Japanese chef Kenjiro ‘Hatch’ Hashida, but Beni was sold last April to an F&B group that also runs restaurants in the Marina Bay Sands.
Hashida Sushi, currently on the second floor of Mandarin Gallery, will take over the 4th floor space that houses Beni and sweets shop Hashida Garo, while 15-seater Beni will close this month and re-open within Hashida Sushi’s second floor unit as a 35-seater with private table seating in July. Hashida Garo closed in March.
Even top-rated Michelin-starred establishments on the other side of the globe aren't immune to the occasional upheaval.
French gastronomy's two créme de la créme, Pierre Gagnaire of three Michelin-starred restaurant Pierre Gagnaire in Paris, and Joel Robuchon, who has restaurants with a total of 25 Michelin stars among them (more stars than any other chef) traded a culinary chess piece last week, in the form of opulent two-starred Restaurant La Grande Maison in Bordeaux.
A collaboration between Robuchon and hotel owner and wine tycoon, Bernard Magrez, Restaurant La Grande Maison's changing of hands to come under Gagnaire's care took many restaurant observers by surprise as it comes less than two years after the restaurant's flamboyant debut in the French culinary scene. It garnered a two-star rating in the Paris Michelin Guide 2016 earlier in February. When asked about Robuchon's departure, Magrez attributed it to "a difficult economic environment” coupled with the tourism slowdown as a result of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris.
This isn't the first time Gagnaire has been asked to fill in hot seat. The 66-year-old French chef also took over the mantle from fellow culinary heavyweight Michel Roux Sr when the latter stepped down from the post of culinary consultant to the Maison 1888 at the Intercontinental Danang in Vietnam earlier last year.
Newton Renewed
Newton Food Centre is back, tastefully refurbished after a three-month layoff – and it looks crisper than ever. Decked out with replaced tables and chairs, an elevated roof for better ventilation and spanking new toilets, this hallowed hawker ground has come roaring back. It retains its incumbent operators for the most part, as well as its crowd of voracious regulars despite the price hikes. All this, while improving further on its formerly already bustling ambiance.
Not-so-nice rice
That irreplaceable, beloved staple of ours has morphed into one of the greatest threats to our health overnight, thanks to recent announcements by the Health Promotion Board (HPB). Based on the findings of four major studies by the Harvard School of Public Health, each plate of white rice eaten daily on a regular basis reportedly raises the risk of diabetes by 11 per cent in the overall population. This makes it even more potent than sweet soda drinks in causing diabetes, a disease that costs the country more than S$1 billion a year.
The finds naturally caused quite the stir amongst Singapore's rice-embracing general public, with responses from citizens varying from acknowledging the risk and accepting dietary change, and those who cited routine as their rationale for not budging from their regular white rice diet. Some even expressed skepticism at the announcement, questioning the results of the study and refusing the HPB’s prompts for a modified carbohydrate intake – though we suppose it’s hard to blame anyone for their attachment to those fluffy morsels so long ingrained in our food culture.
