The new Brasserie Astoria at Victoria Concert Hall is the Frantzén Group’s second Singapore restaurant after its 3 Michelin-star restaurant Zén opened in November 2021. The more casual sibling has started offering set lunch menus. We decided to go check it out.
Grand New Restaurant at Victoria Concert Hall
Located on the ground floor of VCH, the new restaurant is Brasserie Astoria’s first outside of Sweden. It is said to mirror its Stockholm flagship that occupies what was once Astoria Cinema. Brasserie Astoria Singapore is set “to bring back the spirit of grand dining halls to Singapore with flambe trolleys, tableside service, and Chef Frantzén’s unique spin on classic brasserie fare”.
We must say that the high ceiling and grand columns gave it a unique restaurant ambience. The glitzy bar area gives a hint of the potential of a boozy happy meal in this location.
Brasserie Astoria Singapore Menu
The restaurant menu is short and focused. It will not take long to decide what to eat here.
Daily Lunch Menu – Plat du Jour
The new set lunch menu offers diners a choice of a 2 or 3 course lunch at $65++ and $75++ respectively. There are 2 options for each of the starter / mains / dessert departments. We decide to experiment with both the daily lunch menu as well as a couple of items from the Brasserie Astoria Singapore a la carte menu.
Brasserie Astoria Singapore Wine List
The wine list is not as wide as those of other fine dining establishments in Singapore, but there is certainly adequate representation from the usual wine producing regions. Here are a couple of sample pages.
Snails and Steak
Snails a la Provencale ($18++) and Whiskey flambéed Angus beef ($70++) were the items that we ordered from the a la carte menu. The snails were cooked without its shells. Each of them was juicy and of a good size . Taste-wise the snails were coated with herbal buttery gravy. A well-executed French brasserie classic but we were expecting something special from Zen’s sibling.
The steak was the obvious choice from the a la carte as it provided us the opportunity to enjoy the tableside service provided at the flambe trolley. We were indeed impressed by the tableside service at Brasserie Astoria Singapore. The spectacular fireworks was matched by the superb skills of our server – not only in the cooking but by her knowledge of the dish, the various ingredients and the preparation.
Whiskey flambéed Angus beef was quite small in size but large in flavour. It was served with kampot & green pepper sauce and roasted potatoes glazed with Fourme d´Ambert (a semi-hard French blue cheese).
Plat du Jour
For our three course set lunch at Brasserie Astoria Singapore, we selected Salad Lyonnaise, grilled seabass and sesame ice cream. The salad was a bit of a disappointment. The vegetables were plain and the poached egg yolk was neither soft nor hard. Probably 3/4 hard.
The grilled seabass dish was much better. The expertly cooked fish was complemented by the tasty red pepper purée & ratatouille.
Our dessert was sesame ice cream. It looked and tasted like vanilla ice cream but we did not mind it as the taste was gentle and the soft serve ice cream had a very smooth texture. Our knowledgeable server explained that white Japanese sesame seeds were used – which explained the absence of the kind of sesame seeds we were expecting.
Ratings:
Food: 3
Service: 4
Value: 3
Atmosphere: 4
Overall Rating: 3 TOPs
Brasserie Astoria Singapore
11 Empress Place
179558 Singapore
Tel: +65 96191567
Opening Hours:
Lunch: 11.45am to 2.30pm
Dinner: 6pm to 10.30pm
The Ordinary Patrons | Real Dining Experience of Ordinary People
an independent Singapore food blog
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