Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant - Itameshi Omakase Lunch

Itameshi, or “Italian food” in Japanese, has become very popular and Japanese-Italian fusion cuisine is said to be the up and coming culinary trend. Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant gives us an opportunity to find out what is all the fuss about.

Japanese Italian Restaurant @ Duxton

Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant is a fairly new restaurant which opened in late 2019. Located in a shophouse along Duxton Road, it has a dark facade with a discreet signboard.

Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant at Duxton

Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant, Tanjong Pagar

The interiors have dark walls and ceiling. There are 2 small private rooms near the entrance and seats at a long counter allow patrons to get up close and personal with the chefs.

Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant, Duxton Road

Monte Risaia Menu

At Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant, there is no a la carte menu. It is omakase dining both for lunch and dinner; although dinner patrons can get a choice of starters.

Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant Menu

Menu of Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant

Lunch @ Monte Risaia

We visited Monte Risaia at Duxton for lunch recently and opted for the Omakase Course ($79) and Omakase Carne Course ($49). The former was a 5 course meal and the latter 4 course.

Omakase dining meant the chef would make decisions about what to serve for that particular meal. The chef or the server would introduce each dish to us. However, with the wearing of face masks, it was sometimes difficult to make out what was said. So we would just show you photos of the dishes we had without too much description. Suffice to say that every dish was interesting and delectable.

Bread with olives and olive oil were served before the meal began. The bread was really nice.

Omakase Course

The first course a cold dish that was beautifully presented. The sashimi scallops, fish roe and oyster had deleicate briny sea flavours. It was a delightful start to the meal.

The next course was even better. The uni chawanmushi – fresh sea urchin over steamed savoury egg custard – was luxurious.

Lunch at Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant

The third course was truffle pasta with a nice cream-based sauce. The dish was perhaps a good example of a traditional Italian dish with distinctly Japanese elements. It was not like Japanese ramen and not like Italian spaghetti but something rather unique.

Monte Risaia Japanese-Italian fusion pasta

The next dish was wagyu beef with wine sauce. It was very good both in terms of texture and taste.

Omakase at Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant - Wagyu Beef

The dessert looked pretty but was overshadowed by the dessert of the Omakase Carne Course.

Omakase Carne Course

The starter for the 4 course Itameshi Omakase Carne Course was salad with dry-cured wagyu ham. The next course was baked fish which came wrapped in parchment paper. The fish was soft and delicate but the best part of the dish was the delicious dashi broth.

Omakase lunch at Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant

The meat course comprised slices of pork and duck breast drizzled with a sweetish sauce. The duck was more succulent than the pork.

Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant Omakase

The dessert of the Omakase Carne Course was the surprise of the day. We thought it was fruit cocktails with some jelly in a cocktail glass.

A bottle of champagne was then opened in front of us and the cocktail glass was filled to the brim with the bubbly. That was a very nice way to end off a lunch.

Interesting & Delightful

Our lunch at Monte Risaia Japanese Italian Restaurant was a pleasant experience. The Japanese-Italian fusion dishes, prepared with quality ingredients, were interesting and delightful. It was a champagne lifestyle meal at a reasonably affordable price. We left the restaurant happy.