La Table d’Emma - Charming New French Restaurant at Club Street

La Table d’Emma is a new French restaurant at Mercure ICON Hotel, Singapore. It is interesting and stands apart from the usual French restaurants in Singapore by blending Alsace traditions with classic French cuisine. The spacious 130-seat place is said to be a celebration of love, an homage to Chef Michael’s family and devoted to the art of Alsatian cuisine

Where is Mercure ICON Hotel?

New French restaurant La Table d’Emma is located on the ground floor of the Mercure ICON Hotel. This was the first time I have been to this hotel in Singapore. In fact I have not heard of it until this visit. It is a medium-sized new building at the junction of Club Street and Cross Street. The land that it stands on used to be an open-air URA car park. With this carpark gone, the remaining public car park lots are those still remaining along Club Street and surrounding areas.

New French Restaurant at Club Street

At eye level, the restaurant has the warmth of a traditional French bistro with wooden flooring and bentwood chairs. But up on the ceiling, the exposed building structures for ventilation and air-conditioning, gives out inconsistent industrial vibes. The solution was not to look up and just focus on the nice lower parts of the restaurant. At the time of our lunch on a weekend, La Table d’Emma restaurant was not busy.

Named after the Chef’s wife, Emma, the restaurant is helmed by Chef Michael who had worked at Michelin starred restaurants in France and Singapore prior to founding La Table d’Emma, his very own French Alsatian Restaurant where he hopes to increase recognition for Alsatian cuisine in Singapore. A butterfly motif can be found at various places in the restaurant. This motif apparently also holds sentimental value for Chef Michael, harking back to his childhood home adorned with butterflies.

La Table d’Emma Menu

Here is a picture of the restaurant menu. On it are familiar French classics such as onion soup and duck confit as well as dishes that we are not familiar with such as “Flammekueche”. Dishes marked with a butterfly on the menu are the specialties and so we ordered a few of them at our lunch.

French ‘Pizza’ and Onion Soup

Known locally as ‘Flammekueche’, this dish is an Alsatian tarte flambée. From a quick internet search, this is a type of flatbread from Alsace. We picked “LA CHAMPIGNONS” ($22) made with sauteed mushrooms and caramelized onions and cheese. It reminded us of a small pizza. But the crust is much lighter and thinner. The toppings were also more refined. It worked well as an appetiser.

Next was a more familiar dish – French onion soup ($22). This one was less impressive. The Gruyère cheese was fine – sticky and gooey. But the soup was too sweet for our liking and we wished that the onion taste was more intense.

Best Dishes at La Table d’Emma

A butterfly-marked dish – Bretzel beef and cheese sliders ($24) made with soft pretzel buns, house made beef and caramelized onions patties with melted cheese. This was an attractively presented dish. The highlight was the flavourful beef in the sliders.

Another butterfly dish – Les Bouchee a La Rene D’ Emma ($34), this was quite a pricey dish. The butterfly shaped puff pastries were super light and crusty. Perfectly paired with a veal, chicken and mushroom velouté (a lightly flavoured sauce), this could be a light main course for one person.

Our final main course was braised Wagyu beef cheeks (200g/$44). This is the kind of French food that falls under the cuit sur la braise section of the menu. A quick Google translation : “cooked on the embers”. The beef cheeks must have been slowly cooked over charcoal a long time, making each slice was almost tofu soft and coated with a rich and flavourful gravy.

We had a couple of side dishes ($8) as well – grilled portobello with garlic butter and baby spinach beurre noisette. The portobello was good, we liked the spinach less as it was very salty.