Lunch at One Michelin Star Beni Singapore

Beni Singapore at Mandarin Gallery is a small intimate fine-dining restaurant offering “Japanese reinterpretation of authentic French cuisine with Chef’s Table Experience”. Helmed by Chef de Cuisine, Kenji Yamanaka, Beni Singapore has been awarded the prestigious 1-Michelin Star for many years.

Beni Singapore

When we visited Beni in 2016, it was on level 4 of Mandarin Gallery. The restaurant has now moved to the second level to slightly bigger premises.

The cosy restaurant has counter seats at a long Chef’s Table that allow diners to watch all the food preparation action – the transformation of ingredients into delightful dishes.

There are 2 private rooms that can accommodate up to 12 people. One of the rooms has full-height windows that allow a view of Orchard Road.

Lunch Menu of Beni

Beni has an Experience Menu ($108) and Precieux Menu ($218) for lunch. Various options with top-ups as well as wine pairing are available. The menus are refreshed from time to time.

Experience Menu Lunch

We opted for the Experience Menu ($108). Bread and butter were served and we were immediately impressed. The bread was “fine-dining” bread that somehow tasted much better than bread we might get from the neighbourhood bakeries. The salted egg butter was really remarkable.

The starter was a pretty dish with cod, lily bud and yellow capsicum. It was a rather unusual combination of ingredients but the result was wonderful. We liked the subtle taste and contrasting textures.

Seared fish with sakura, cherry and Béarnaise sauce was the second starter. The dish had layers of taste and we liked the floral sweet cherry flavours.

The next dish was a cold soup – Mushroom with cream and truffle. Even those who might not be particularly fond of cold soup should find Beni’s cold soup rather easy to like.

The main course was veal served with watercress and a colourful mix of vegetables and roots. The veal was prepared in the style of the traditional French veal stew. The veal was so tender that the steak knife provided was redundant. It was a luscious and delectable dish.

There were two dessert dishes. The pistachio ice cream was delightful and Beni’s interpretation of the good old apple pie with puff pastry and vanilla ice cream was particularly noteworthy. It was not just run of the mill apple pie with fancy plating. The taste and texture were definitely sophisticated and unique and the dessert dish was very enjoyable.

Unlike set lunch or omakase meals in many fine dining restaurants, coffee or tea is part of the set lunch at Beni’s. The staff brought out a tray of coffee beans and different variety of tea leaves in tubes for us to choose from. We opted for a long black and latte. They were served in nice cups.

A tray of petit four was presented at the same time as our coffee. They tasted as good as they looked.

Good Michelin Star Lunch

$108 is certainly quite a lot to pay for lunch for ordinary patrons like us but we thought it was a reasonable price for a very good lunch at a Michelin Star restaurant. The food items were of high quality and the service was friendly and very professional. If we can afford it, we would definitely like to dine at Beni Singapore more frequently.

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

Beni Singapore
333A Orchard Road
#02-37 Mandarin Gallery
Singapore 238897

Tel : +65 9159 3177 / 6235 2285

Opening Hours
Mondays – Saturdays
12:00 noon – 3:00 pm
7:00 pm – 10:30 pm
Closed on Sunday

Website

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