Jaan, Singapore

[Bu Pun Su]

Jaan is a restaurant that brought to my attention when Andre Chiang was there. Once I would like to go there, but then learned that Chef Andre had left. It was not until last year that I finally visited this restaurant located at the 70th floor of Swiss otel for a business lunch; it was quite a good experience actually. Almost a year later (Spring ‘13), I believe Jaan, lead by a French native Julien Royer, should have become “more mature and steady” that I decided to go for a bigger menu at dinner. I ordered the 8-course menu prestige artisanal cuisine. Generally, I was pleased with my dining experience here.

Among them, my favorite dishes were:

-Smoked New zealand organic egg that’s prepared for 55 min at about 60 degrees C; it’s the restaurant’s signature dish. This was the kind of dish displaying Chef’s Royer finesse and creativity. The dish has silky texture from the egg, earthy flavor from the mushrooms, as well as salty crunch generated mainly by the chorizo. It’s almost perfect to my likeness if only he used Onsen tamago that’s milkier with creamy texture

-The tender and sweet Norwegian langoustine (almost tasted like Pacaud’s langoustine). The prawn was covered with ‘bread crumb’ mixed with pancetta foam and tasty “brown butter”. The pumpkin didn’t really to anything for me; I wish the langoustine portion was more generous ..

-Pigeon from Bresse was probably the world’s best. I truly enjoyed Chef Royer’s hay roasted version served with the bird’s own juice. I particularly liked the breast meat, cooked medium rare and consumed with top morels; it was succulent. The leg confit was also tender but the oval was too rich

Some dishes that I was not too fond of were:

-Avocado canneloni stuffed with Obsiblue prawn served with caviar and crustacean jelly. This was the opening dish that looked ‘beautiful & complex’, pleasing to the eyes but not to the palate. It was cold and refreshing, yet forgetable

-Atlantic turbot usually has nice texture; sometimes not easy to season or bring out the fish’s inherent flavor. This turbot confit here was rather bland with the only taste hope coming from the turbot’s sauce. However, the ‘stone plate’ quickly abosorbed the sauce and the Hokkaido corn puree was not sweet either. These makes the overall flavor of the dish became too light

The rests of the dishes are quite alright for me. For instance, the grilled foie gras was smooth with clear veggie broth to remove the liver’s rich taste. The chocolate dessert (chips, brownies and dark choc. Ice cream) was quite nice. After the heavy pigeon dish, in fact, the pre-dessert of mango & passion sorbet plus coconut meringue with tapioca worked better. Before forgotten, actually the amuse of cepes sabayon with mushroom tea and croutons served hot was interesting and nice; it’s flavorful and aromatic.

The restaurant was rather empty for Sunday evening, only 5-6 window seats were filled. It offers a great view of Marina bay landscape and Singapore skyline. Beside the view, the outstanding part of the restaurant’s dining room was the rows of Murano chandeliers. Having trained at Bras, Julien Royer successfully brought back Jaan as an iconic dining place in Singapore. It is rather amazing that a chef who is barely 30 years of age yet already possesses a high level mastery of textures and flavors. Julien is certainly on the right track and arguably among the young chefs with the most potential to be the great ones. I would give 92/100 pts for my dinner here, equivalent to 2 ¼* by Michelin standard. Using the red book’s lenient judgement in USA and HK, I would say Jaan will almost certain get 2* if Michelin comes and grades Singapore restaurants one day

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