Violet Oon Singapore Ion Orchard - all day dining ft. local, Nyonya & British cuisine

Violet Oon Singapore Ion Orchard is the latest new restaurant by Violet Oon Restaurant Group. It is located on the third level of Ion Orchard, in the atrium space that is now enclosed. We were there for lunch recently on a weekday and it was a full house.

Violet Oon Singapore Ion Orchard entrance — Violet Oon Singapore Ion Orchard

According to the Violet Oon website, the famous Nyonya chef and her family had in 2014 teamed up with Group MMM to rebrand the business, “relaunching as Violet Oon Singapore, with the vision to launch concepts around Singapore food and build Violet Oon globally”. That explains the smart decor of their outlets at National Gallery and Clarke Quay and expanding the menus beyond Nyonya food. The new Violet Oon restaurant at Ion looks attractive but not beautiful like the one at National Gallery. The space is quite densely packed with tables, French bistro style.

Violet Oon Singapore Ion Orchard Menu

Here are pictures of some pages of the Violet Oon Singapore Ion Orchard menu. We like the quote from the chef. The menu contains more than just Peranakan cuisine. Examples of other dishes are local favourites such as chicken rice and Hainanese pork chop and British fare like shepherd’s pie and Mulligatawny soup. Nyonya food takes up one page of the menu. Being creatures of habit, we still think of VO as the dame of Peranakan cuisine in Singapore and most of our selections came from that page.

Our only non-Nyonya item was the chicken curry with roti jala. The roti jala was very good – crisp on the surface and soft in the inside. The curry was less impressive. The flavours of the curry were mild and nothing in particular stood out.

We had three Nyonya dishes to eat with steamed rice. The ayam buah keluak ($23, above picture) was average. There were three buah keluak shells stuffed with the precious nut. But the cooking did not bring out their presence and the anticipated rich nutty taste was hardly present. It was like a dish of braised chicken.

The sayur lodeh ($13) was a nicer dish. The tempeh was the highlight – we love it – very chewy and strong flavoured.

The best dish of the day was the beef rendang ($23, picture below). The amount of beef was generous. The gravy was thick and rich, coating the extremely tender meat. In our enthusiasm to try as many items as possible, we had over-ordered that day. With the benefit of hindsight, we could simply have a nice meal for two with just the rendang and two bowls of rice. And perhaps have some space to experiment with dessert.