Odette Singapore Restaurant Review – Indulgent Lunch on a Special Occasion

Odette Singapore restaurant at the National Gallery has won a lot of accolades in the short span of five years. From zero to three Michelin Stars. Unfortunately prices seemed to keep pace with the awards. We had almost given up hope of dining there. Until recently.

Odette Singapore restaurant is located on the ground floor of the National Art Gallery. It is in the former Supreme Court building, near the Cricket Club end of National Gallery. Posh restaurants tend to be housed in grand hotels. It is a joy to visit a nice restaurant in an art museum for a change. Odette restaurant in the Singapore National Art Gallery reminded us of The Modern in MoMA New York City, but on a smaller scale. Odette looks bigger in the photos than in real life. The kitchen in the middle appears tiny and was a hive of activity. I guesstimate the staff to customer ratio at the restaurant to be around 1 : 1. It was a full house during our weekday lunch. Online reservations have to made a month in advance, secured by credit card details.

Odette Singapore Restaurant Menu (August 2020)

There were only two lunch options available at Odette Singapore at the time of our visit at the end of August 2020 : the 6 course $248++ “Terre & Mer” course and the “Indulgence” $358++ . As expected these days, it was the rule that everyone on the table had to order the same course. We were invited to lunch to celebrate a special occasion that happens once in 20 years. We lifted our eyes to get the cue from the host. She said, “the Indulgence menu looks nice”. Fireworks celebrations were set off in our hearts. But we calmly said, “we are happy with either, in fact the T & M option would be more than enough”, but not in an assertive way. The host’s view prevailed.

Wine At Odette Singapore

Someone once said that ” a meal without wine is like a day without sunshine”. An indulgent meal at Odette would be incomplete without some accompanying wines to go with the 3 Michelin Star food. There is a wine pairing option of $185++ per person. A second option option is to pick your wines from the extensive Odette wine list. Here are pictures of two sample pages from the Odette wine menu. The wines by the glass start from $30 and bottles from around $150.

The third option is to make use of the “1-for-1” BYO option provided by the Odette restaurant. Order a bottle from restaurant and bring another from home with no corkage fee charged. Which was what we did. The wines that we had that day were a bottle of white wine – 2018 Jonathan Didier Pabiot Prédilection (Pouilly-Fumé) purchased from the restaurant at around $165 and a bottle of red – 2006 Château Haut-Brion from home, They were both very enjoyable and matched the quality of the food. The Haut Brion is a Bordeaux first growth and had matured well and was ready for drinking.

Odette Singapore Restaurant Review

Bread and Snacks

Usually, our favourite part of these expensive set course meals is the beginning. Sometimes called amuse bouche, nowadays they are often referred to as snacks or “grignotages” at Odette. The finger food items items were all wonderful and interesting, especially the mushroom soup with truffles. The bread selection was however quite basic.

First and Second Courses – Exquisite Dishes

Premium seafood was the theme of the first and second courses. The first course was made up of two items – prawn tartare topped with mussel foam and caviar (top left) and sea urchin on toast (top right).

The second course was lobster ‘Alexandre Navarre’ (picture below). Curious about this name of the dish, I did a Google search and he appears to be a supplier of high-end blue lobsters. It appears that even Les Amis gets their supply from him. The first two courses looked very luxurious and tasted great. If only they were larger!

To view our lunch at Les Amis, read our post here.

Third and Fourth Courses – Dramatic Dishes

The third and fourth courses were as much for our eyes as they were for our taste buds. Prepare your cameras when these arrive.

Odette Singapore restaurant’s signature dish is the Rosemary Smoked Organic Egg. Like a true diva, she arrived in dramatic fashion. Smoke from dry ice and smokey rosemary leaves excite the eyes and the nose. Each egg was served into in a glass globe atop a bunch of smoking leaves. They not only taste good but look and smell great as well.

The BBQ Kinki was a slice of kinki fish and zucchini flower stuffed with prawn bathed in a seafood bouillabaisse sauce. It was a good combination. The bouillabaisse was my favourite part – like a portion of intense lobster bisque.

The Pigeons

Our meat course was Kampot Pepper Crusted Pigeon. This dish also made me pull out Google to find out what it means. According to Wikipedia, Kampot pepper is a type of pepper grown and produced in Kampot Province in Cambodia. From the two whole pigeons, we were each served a piece of the breast and one drumstick. They were tiny pieces of meat. The cherry sauce probably drowned out what little peppery flavour there was.

The One That Got Away

An optional round of cheese was offered to us after the pigeon. The cheese requires a $38 supplement. This time we declined in earnest (and succeeded) although I must say the array of cheese at Odette looked tempting.

Odette Singapore : Time for Dessert

Dessert and some petite fours brought our expensive 3-hour lunch at Odette Singapore restaurant to a sweet end. Everything was top-notch except for the service which we felt was more business-like than friendly. The standard of service was good but not at the same level as the food.

Ratings:
Food: 5
Service: 4
Value: 3
Atmosphere: 5
Overall Rating: 4 TOPs 

Odette Restaurant
National Gallery Singapore
1 St Andrew’s Road #01-04
Singapore 178957

Tel: +65 6385 0498

Nearby MRT Stations: City Hall, Espanade

Website

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The Ordinary Patrons | Real Dining Experience of Ordinary People
an independent Singapore food blog