WHEN you've been making the rounds of new restaurants and their fancy concepts in and around the Dempsey area, sometimes it's nice to go back to an old favourite where you know exactly what you're going to get.
Not having been to Saint Pierre for a long while, it's refreshing to note that chef Emmanuel Stroobant is still on top of his game, with a new summer menu that showcases his penchant for funky, new-wave cuisine that may be all style but is nonetheless rooted in substance.
At one stage, he had been veering closer to more traditional French cooking with the likes of blanquette de veau, unctuously rich braised beef cheeks showing up either in its original or deconstructed form. This time around, he's swung back into the free-style form of cooking that helped make his mark on the local dining scene.
Ever in search of new tastes, textures and presentation, the new summer menu doesn't disappoint with the degustation menu's quirky amuse bouche like tomato-flavoured marshmallow with a crunchy breadcrumb crust and a tangy tomato jelly wrapped in spinach leaves.
Delicate yet assertive flavours sum up the half-smoked salmon tataki which sits on top of edamame jelly, prettily presented with white beans and a raw mushroom dressing.
Also interesting was his take on California roll (from the main menu) - dashi poached cabbage leaf layered with avocado, atlantic crab, mozzarella and caviar with cucumber foam. Nice concept but let down by the debris in the crabmeat and the blandness of the cabbage.
The grilled scallop, despite its fancy wardrobe of gold leaf with tomato salsa and gold spherification, was decent enough but seemed unnecessarily over-dressed.
Still, if one had to name chef Stroobant's best new dish of the season, it would be his deceptively simple foie gras consomme - clean, clear duck consomme with barely poached lobes of foie gras, crunchy dehydrated julienned vegetables and soft cubes of pumpkin can only be the result of some serious out-of-the-box culinary thinking. You get the intensity of the clear soup, the melting soft texture of foie gras contrasted with the crunchy vegetables - it's like he took simplicity and deconstructed it.
The same principle was applied to the shabu shabu beef salad of poached wagyu tenderloin served with blue cheese and a tomato-sesame dressing in a test tube, with great success.
As one always ready to take classics and reinterpret them, Stroobant makes no bones about re-defining even his treasured grandmother's flourless chocolate cake. Inspired by the After Eight mint, the 'remixed' version of the cake saw it paired with mint jelly and mint foam. You won't want the real After Eight after this.
Indeed, sometimes in the flurry of new wave eateries trying to keep up with trends or create new ones, it's nice to know that the guy who's already been creating trends of his own has yet to find his match.
Saint Pierre #01-01 Central Mall.
1 Magazine Road
(S)059567
Tel: 6438-0887
Rating: 8/10
